SOCIETY
Online rice drive launched
An online free goods distribution service has prepared rice for social welfare organizations and disadvantaged families to enable the nation’s needy people to enjoy the Lunar New Year holiday. The service was set up by Give543 to provide a Web-based donation platform along with major donor Ting Hung-yi (丁弘毅) to offer 1,040kg of rice to people in need starting on Tuesday, Web site founder Ma Yu-ju (馬玉如) said. As most disadvantaged groups may not have computers, it is difficult for them to learn about the donation campaign from the Web site, Ma added. Neighbors are therefore encouraged to help spread the word, and assist families in need of assistance to apply for the free rice. The rice donation campaign will run from Tuesday to Jan. 17, during which applications will be accepted on the campaign’s Web site (http://www.give543.com/mypage_give/giveto_view/1/79549). Any individual and public interest group in need of other supplements can publicize their needs on Give543.com.
ASTRONOMY
Jupiter in view tomorrow
Astronomy buffs will have a chance to see Jupiter at its brightest tomorrow, when it moves closest to the Earth, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The opposition of Jupiter, which occurs when the Earth’s orbit situates it between the sun and the largest planet in the solar system, will offer the best view of Jupiter this year, the museum said. Although the celestial event will take place at 5:11am tomorrow, museum staffer Chang Kuei-lan (張桂蘭) said the planet will remain relatively bright until late this month. Anyone could easily find Jupiter in the late evening by looking up at the eastern sky, Chang said. Those interested in the planet’s Great Red Spot and its South Equatorial Belt are encouraged to visit the museum between 7pm and 9pm on Saturdays to use its 20cm telescope for a look, she said.
TOURISM
Japanese tourists down: data
Fewer Japanese tourists visited Taiwan during the first 11 months of last year as a result of the depreciation of the Japanese yen, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. Although the group still accounted for Taiwan’s second-largest source of tourism, after Chinese tourists, the number dropped by 2.6 percent to 1.28 million compared with the same period a year ago, officials said. This bucks the overall trend Taiwan is seeing. The DGBAS said the nation saw 7.21 million foreign arrivals between January and November last year, a 9.1 percent annual increase. By the end of last year, the nation set a new record — welcoming more than 8 million tourists for the first time in a single year.
ENVIRONMENT
Air quality ‘unhealthy’
The air quality in some parts of the country has reached “unhealthy” levels due to relatively high concentrations of particulate matter brought in by a continental cold air mass, a government air quality monitoring Web site indicated yesterday. The Environmental Protection Administration’s Taiwan Air Quality Monitoring Network site reported that due to the migration of transboundary pollution, the concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 were relatively high. The pollutant standards index (PSI), based on the concentration of several particles in the air, reached a red (unhealthy air quality) level in Taipei and on Kinmen and Matsu islands yesterday morning.
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,