CRIME
Immigration official detained
A National Immigration Agency (NIA) official was detained by prosecutors on Wednesday on allegations of extortion during the investigation of a suspected illegal migrant worker. The official, surnamed Wen (溫), is accused of demanding NT$10,000 from an Indonesian worker and NT$20,000 from her employer, purportedly to pay for the employee’s deportation, the Investigation Bureau said. Wen was not authorized to collect money from either the worker or her employer, the bureau said. The matter came to light in May when the Taipei City Field Office of the Investigation Bureau arrested the Indonesian woman on charges of overstaying and working illegally in Taiwan. Prosecutors said 40 foreign resident permits were found in Wen’s house in Keelung and at his Hsinchu office. The investigators said they would trace Wen’s cash flow to try to determine whether he had extorted money from other migrant workers.
TOURISM
Yunlin to open bridge
The Yunlin County Government has announced plans to open a steel bridge across the Beigang River (北港溪) to help tourists reach all the historical sites in the county, as part of its efforts to promote this year’s Agriculture Exposition. Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chi-fen (蘇治芬) said the 113m-long bridge would be opened along with two other bridges by the end of this year, ahead of the year-end exposition. Su said the Beigang bridge would help introduce the area’s cultural heritage — historical sites, unique houses, temples and traditional art forms — by providing improved access for tourists. The exposition, which will be held from Dec. 25 through March 6 next year, is aimed at raising awareness about environmentally friendly farming practices.
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,