SOCIETY
Two struck by lightning
Two lifesaving instructors were reportedly struck by lightning early yesterday during a training session on a beach at Sizihwan in Greater Kaohsiung. The pair were said to be in critical condition. Two other instructors and a trainee who suffered from shock after witnessing the lightning strike were also sent to a nearby hospital, where they were reported to be in stable condition. Kaohsiung Harbor City Water Lifesaving Association president Chen Li-na (陳麗娜) said the association decided to hold a training session that day as scheduled, despite continual rainfall throughout the morning. Thirteen instructors and 23 students were participating in the lesson. The instructors were standing on the beach and assessing whether it was safe for the students to go into the water when the lightning struck, Chen said, adding that the pair who were injured were very experienced and knew the dangers of going into the water during a thunderstorm. The Central Weather Bureau’s Kaohsiung Weather Station said people should not go near the ocean or into the mountains when there is a potential for thunderstorms.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
Marines to be on TV
The Republic of China Marine Corps is to be featured this week in a National Geographic Channel program that reports on the rigorous training marines go through. The first of six episodes will be aired on Wednesday, with subsequent episodes every Wednesday over the following weeks, the channel said. The series highlights the rigorous training faced by the Marine Corps Amphibious Reconnaissance and Patrol Unit at a naval base in Greater Kaohsiung, the Ministry of National Defense said. The program reports stories behind the unit’s arduous 10-week training, which includes crawling over stones and a six-day task that requires trainees to finish a long run, swim in the sea and row at night, the ministry said. National Geographic Channel recently released a preview of the program which can be viewed on the Facebook pages of the channel and the ministry. This was the second cooperative project between the military and National Geographic Channel. The channel produced a documentary on air force exercises that took place in 2011. Titled Inside: Highway, Runway, the film, features the Hankuang 27 Road Runway Exercise that involved using a southern highway as a military airstrip, and was broadcast in October 2011.
ACADEMIA
Math professor honored
A Taiwanese professor was awarded a silver medal, dubbed the Fields Medal of the Chinese-speaking world, in Taipei yesterday, the only mathematician from Taiwan to be recognized this year, according to the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians. Chang Chieh-yu (張介玉), an assistant professor at National Tsing Hua University’s mathematics department, was awarded the medal in the triennial Morningside Medal of Mathematics, which was first awarded in 1998. Chang received his bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees from National Tsing Hua University and did a post-doctorate fellowship at the National Center for Theoretical Sciences and National Central University. He told reporters that the nation’s math field has improved in recent years, but said there is room for improvement. He suggested mathematicians engage in exchanges with foreign talent to find inspiration. The award was established by Chinese-born US mathematician Yau Shing-tung (丘成桐), who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982.
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
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
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,