DIPLOMACY
Nicaraguan officials visit
Nicaraguan Minister of Foreign Affairs Samuel Santos Lopez is leading a delegation on a visit to Taiwan, during which he is scheduled to meet with high-level government officials and promote Nicaraguan coffee, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. During the visit, which began on Saturday, the delegation will meet with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂), the ministry said in a statement on Saturday. Santos will also meet with coffee importers in an effort to expand the presence of Nicaraguan coffee in Taiwan. The delegation is also to visit the King Car Whisky Distillery — the first whisky distillery in the nation — and the Lanyang Museum, which focuses on the culture and social development of Yilan County. Nicaragua is one of 23 countries that have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The delegation leaves tomorrow.
WEATHER
Taipei sees hottest June ever
The past 30 days are set to become the hottest June on record in Taipei since the city’s weather station was established in 1896, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Taipei was averaging a temperature of 29.1oC for the month through Friday, which, barring any surprises in the final two days of the month, would eclipse the previous high of 29oC in June 2011 and 28.9oC in 1996, the bureau said. Taipei has grown steadily warmer each June and is now hotter than Greater Kaohsiung because of the “heat island effect,” which makes urban regions warmer than their rural surroundings, the bureau said. The effect describes the release of heat from concrete, asphalt and other materials in urban environments that have absorbed sunlight, as well as the generation of additional heat by the concentrated use of air conditioners. The bureau said that July and August are traditionally hotter than June, and urged Taipei residents to take steps to avoid heat stroke, including using sunscreen and staying hydrated.
CULTURE
Design summit to open
This year’s Taipei World Design Conference will explore social design and sustainable living in an effort to use design to solve the problems faced by cities, organizers said on Saturday. The conference, to be held on Wednesday, will feature speakers from Taiwan and Denmark, including Danish Design CentreNille chief executive Juul-Sorensen; Jens Martin Skibsted, co-founder of Denmark-based design group KiBiSi; and Thomas Hammer-Jakobsen, co-founder of Danish consultancy firm Copenhagen Living Lab. They will deliver lectures on topics including sustainability, using design to improve everyday life and increasing the quality of city dwellers’ lives. The conference, organized by the Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Trade Council of Denmark in Taipei and Taiwan Design Center, will take place at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum.
CULTURE
Drummers in championships
A drum and bugle group from Taipei will travel to the US on July 20 to perform in the world championships of Drum Corps International (DCI). During its 26-day trip, the Taipei Yuehfu Drum and Bugle Corps will perform in competitions and parades in five states, before joining the DCI World Championships in Indiana next month, the group said in a statement yesterday. The corps will perform a Chinese music piece, The Butterfly Lovers, which tells the tragic Chinese legend of a pair of lovers who fought feudal norms to pursue love, group director Vickey Ku said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the