ASTRONOMY
Sunspot groups visible
Two large groups of sunspots will remain visible to the naked eye in Taiwan through tomorrow as solar activity reaches its peak, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said. The sunspots, coded AR2157 and AR2158, are especially prominent now, the museum said. The groups each cover an area that is 10 times the surface of Earth and will remain visible before they rotate away from our planet, according to the museum. The emergence of large concentrations of sunspots occurs when the sun enters a period of increasing magnetic field turbulence, which can lead to large eruptions of charged particles that form dark dots as seen from Earth, it said. The intense solar activity could cause disruptions to satellite-based communications, such as cellphones and GPS, the museum said. Sun gazers must use solar filters to protect their eyes — not ordinary sunglasses, it advised. The best times to see the sunspots are in the early morning and late afternoon when the sunlight is the weakest during the day, the museum said.
WEATHER
Storm strands 2,000 tourists
Nearly 2,000 tourists were stranded on Green Island (綠島) off the coast of southeastern Taiwan yesterday because of big waves and strong winds resulting from Typhoon Kalmaegi. The typhoon, which swept through the northern Philippines overnight, is not a threat to Taiwan proper, but has caused 4m waves near Green Island, leading to the suspension of the seven ferries scheduled to sail between the island and Taitung yesterday. The ferry service was suspended without warning and the vessels’ operators said they were not sure when services would resume. Strong wind gusts from the storm’s periphery reaching about 90kph were recorded off Taiwan’s northern, northeastern and southern coasts, forecasters said. Taipei, meanwhile, experienced winds of about 60kph, the bureau said, warning that the strong winds could continue into the evening. Ships operating in the South China Sea and Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines should be on high alert, the bureau said.
SOCIETY
Student group axes election
The Tamkang University Student Association announced yesterday that it is suspending an election for the organization’s top posts in which two students from China are running, due to complaints they made over election regulations. A further decision will be made after the dispute is cleared up, the association said. The election for the organization’s presidency and vice presidencies has created a buzz because the two Chinese students registered to vie for the positions. A controversy erupted last month after the national flags of the People’s Republic of China and Republic of China were printed on the election bulletin to distinguish the nationalities of the Taiwanese and Chinese candidates.
TOURISM
No. 5 for Chinese tourists
About 3.5 million out of 106 million trips from China were to Taiwan between July last year and June, making Taiwan the fifth-most popular destination for Chinese tourists in the period, according to the Forbes.com Web site. The top two in the Top 10 list were Hong Kong and Macau, with 44 million and 20 million arrivals respectively, including day trips, Wolfgang Georg Arlt, a professor of international tourism management, wrote on the Web site. Chinese visitors to Thailand slid since the fourth quarter of last year, while the number visiting Vietnam dropped after May.
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