EDUCATION
NTU receives big donation
A well-known US obstetrician has donated NT$90 million (US$3 million) to her alma mater, National Taiwan University (NTU), to help train female physicians and medical researchers. Livia Wan (萬祥玉), 80, said she wanted to encourage more women to dedicate themselves to medicine, particularly in the field of obstetrics and gynecology. The university said it will use the money to set up a special fund to hire female professors in the field. Wan graduated from the school’s Medical College in 1958, but when she applied for a resident physician post at National Taiwan University Hospital she was turned down. In frustration, she moved to the US, where she secured an internship at Kings County Hospital Center in New York before being accepted as a resident at Philadelphia General Hospital.
DIPLOMACY
Ma, Paraguay officials meet
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday urged the Paraguayan Senate to exert its influence to help promote bilateral ties through its recently established “Republic of China friendship committee.” The committee, established on Dec. 12 last year, is the first friendship group set up by the Senate since the opening of its current session in July. Ma met with a delegation of Paraguayan senators led by Senate President Julio Cesar Velazquez at the Presidential Office. Ma said he hopes the committee can push the Paraguayan government to take substantive action in support of Taiwan’s bid to participate in international activities and organizations. He expressed his appreciation to Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes for speaking up for Taiwan at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 24 last year.
SOCIETY
Nation’s oldest person dies
The nation’s oldest person, Liu Ching-huan (劉鏡寰), died of heart and lung failure yesterday at Puli Christian Hospital at the age of 115. Liu was born in 1899 in Sichuan Province, China, and later moved to Taiwan. After her husband died, she converted to Buddhism. She entered a Buddhist temple in 1965 and later become a nun, the Nantou County Government said. She spent much of her time reciting Buddhist mantras. When asked about the secret of her longevity, she would suggest to people to recite Buddhist teachings, which she said would add to one’s blessings.
ENTERTAINMENT
Second comic festival set
The Taipei International Comics and Animation Festival is to open on Feb. 4, featuring graphic artists, animation directors and voice actors from Taiwan and Japan. Organizers yesterday said that the second annual festival will have 430 booths for 50 exhibitors, as well as 44 book signings and other events. Last year’s festival attracted 330,000 visitors and generated NT$130 million (US$4.33 million) in revenue, the organizer said, and it expects this year’s visitor numbers and revenues to beat last year’s figures. Among the big-name artists and authors who are to appear at the festival is Japanese manga artist Hajime Isayama, whose popular series Attack on Titan sold more than 22 million copies worldwide. The festival will be the first time Isayama visits Taiwan, and he is scheduled to hold an autograph session on the opening day. Shiki Mizuchi and illustrator Kohada Shimesaba of the popular Japanese light novel series Dragonar Academy is to sign autographs on Feb. 6. The festival is to run until Feb. 8 at the Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall.
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