WEATHER
Foehn winds forecast
Afternoon thunderstorms could ease off across the nation today due to a strengthening Pacific high-pressure system, while the southeastern parts of the nation might experience Foehn winds — hot and dry gusts that can send temperatures soaring, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. More stable weather is forecast for most parts of the nation, the bureau said, adding that while chances of thunderstorms remain, they are not likely to be as intense or as long as the one earlier in the week. The Foehn winds, which often send temperatures higher than 36oC, could affect southeastern Taiwan through Monday, the bureau said. Temperatures in Taitung County’s Dawu Township (大武) rose to 38.7oC last week under a similar weather pattern, setting the highest reading in the nation this year, the bureau said.
AVIATION
Tigerair drops Thailand route
Budget carrier Tigerair Taiwan, a joint venture between China Airlines and Singapore’s Tiger Airways, yesterday said it would end services between Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Chiang Mai in northern Thailand from Aug. 3. The carrier said it would shift its focus to the Northeast Asian market, where travel interest is stronger. Tigerair, which launched flights to Tokyo’s Narita International Airport in April, is to start offering services to Japan’s Okinawa and Osaka this month and next month respectively. A Taoyuan-Tokyo (Haneda) service is likely to be in place no later than January next year, it added. People who have already bought tickets to Chiang Mai can either get full refunds, change their destination to Singapore, Bangkok or Macau without extra cost, or make up the difference in prices to get tickets to Tokyo, Okinawa or Osaka, Tigerair 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
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