SOCIETY
Burns death toll hits 10
A 31-year-old woman died on Thursday from injuries sustained in the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) fire and explosion in June, bringing the death toll from the incident to 10, according to a local hospital. The woman, surnamed Kuo (郭), was pronounced dead at Chi Mei Hospital in Tainan after being transferred from a Taipei hospital so her family members could help take care of her. Kuo suffered second and third-degree burns over 50 percent of her body and died of septic shock and multiple organ failure, doctors said.
SOCIETY
Keelung celebrates festival
The annual Keelung Ocean Eagle Festival to be held today aims to promote local cuisine and culture, the Keelung City Government said. The festival is to feature a parade, drumming and belly dancing, officials said. The parade includes performances by several local drumming groups and is to be held along a 1.2km route from the city’s Cultural Center to the Maritime Plaza. Floats for the parade are being built by several communities in the city.
ASTRONOMY
Perseid meteors on show
Stargazers are invited to observe a Perseid meteor shower from Aug. 12 to Aug. 14 at the Alishan National Scenic Area in Chiayi, the Chiayi Astronomical Society said. The meteor shower, one of three this year, is to take place over the three days, with the climax on Aug. 13, when people can expect to see 100 meteors per hour. The event, including an introduction to Perseids, counting stars and photographing the night sky, is to be held from 7pm to 9pm on the viewing platform in the Alishan Forest Recreation Area.
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