AGRICULTURE
Rice mill inspected
Prosecutors and government officials yesterday conducted an inspection of a Miaoli County rice mill to check on its rice sources after the mill was linked to a scam that labeled imported rice as locally grown. Samples of rice from 10 packages were sent to health authorities for tests. The inspection was triggered by the discovery that Chyuan Shun Food Enterprise Co — one of the three largest rice mills and distributors in the nation — was found to be selling rice labeled as domestically grown, but which had been mixed with cheaper imported rice. The Agriculture and Food Agency yesterday fined the firm NT$200,000 — the maximum penalty possible — for the disparity. The agency also demanded a full recall of affected products. Chyuan Shun chairman Lee Tung-chao (李東朝) apologized in a statement for what he called a “labeling error.” He also promised to institute immediate corrections and stricter quality controls.
ENTERTAINMENT
Tsai’s film picked for festival
Director Tsai Ming-liang’s (蔡明亮) latest film, Stray Dogs (郊遊), has been added to the lineup of 36 films on the main slate of the 51st New York Film Festival, which is to take place from Sept. 27 to Oct.13. It will be the first Taiwanese film to be screened at the festival since 2004, when Hou Hsiao-hsien’s (侯孝賢) Cafe Lumiere (咖啡時光) was shown. Stray Dogs is the 55-year-old Tsai’s third film, following What Time Is It There? (你那邊幾點) in 2001 and Goodbye, Dragon Inn (不散) in 2003. The organizer of the New York Film Festival praised Stray Dogs, a 138-minute feature about a homeless family living on the edges of modern society, as “bracingly pure in its anger and its compassion, and as visually powerful as it is emotionally overwhelming.”
ENVIRONMENT
Team tracks sea turtles
Two green sea turtles were released over the weekend after being fitted with satellite transmitters that will let a team of National Taiwan Ocean University researchers and marine workers keep tabs on their movements, the Liouciou Township (琉球) Office in Pingtung County said. The team is using transmitters provided by Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department and the US-based Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. The coral reef around the township, a small island off the southwestern coast, has helped create a unique environment for the creatures. At least 100 sea turtles have made a home within 10m of the coastline, while even more turtles come use the area as a hatching ground, the researchers said.
SOCIETY
MOE to honor Rhinos’ Hsu
The Ministry of Education (MOE) will posthumously honor EDA Rhinos manager Hsu Sheng-ming (徐生明), who died on Saturday last week aged 54, with a lifetime achievement award, Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧) said on Monday. The ministry will also recommend that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) issue a posthumous citation to Hsu, he said. Hsu died at home late on Saturday following his team’s game against the Brother Elephants in Taipei. He was a member of the national baseball team at every level, starting as a player before becoming a manager. He also held the record for number of wins by a manager in the nation’s professional baseball leagues with 715. He will be remembered for refusing to go along with a game-fixing scam, for which he was wounded in a knife attack. A funeral service will be held in Taipei on Sept. 9, when Taiwan celebrates Sports Day, the Rhinos 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
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,