WEATHER
First snow falls on Yushan
Snow fell for the first time this winter, marking the latest arrival of the season’s first snow in 15 years, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The snow was discovered by weather station personnel at about 5am on Yushan (玉山), the highest peak in Taiwan at 3,952m. The personnel said they were surprised, because overnight temperatures had not fallen below 0?C. Central Weather Bureau forecaster Lin Ping-yu (林秉昱) said that while the lowest recorded temperature on the ground was 0.8°C, there was sufficient moisture and low enough temperatures in the upper atmosphere to generate snowflakes. Taiwan usually sees its first snowfall on its highest mountains in December, Lin said, adding that the last time snow came this late was in the winter of 2000-2001, when first snow fell on Jan. 10, 2001.
ELECTIONS
Ballot reaches record length
The high number of political parties running in the legislative elections caused the ballot paper to reach a length of 73cm and a width of 15cm, the Central Election Commission said. Eighteen parties are vying for 34 at-large seats in the elections, the commission said, adding that it is the highest number of parties running in an election since the “single constituency, two vote” system was introduced in 2008. There were 12 political parties vying for at-large seats in 2008 and 11 in 2012, the commission said. Each voter is to cast three ballots in the Jan. 16 presidential and legislative elections, one for a presidential candidate, one for a legislative candidate and one for a political party, which would determine how the at-large seats are distributed, the commission said.
SOCIETY
Taiwanese less happy
Taiwanese are feeling less happy, with the happiness index in the fourth quarter of last year dropping to a two-year low of 6.36, according to the results of a poll released last week. Since March 2012, Global Views Monthly magazine’s survey research center has been tracking the perceived happiness level of Taiwanese across different aspects of life on a quarterly basis. The latest poll questioned the respondents on overall well-being, health, satisfaction with living standards, social connectivity and income to gauge levels of self-satisfaction. The poll results showed Taiwanese’s self-satisfaction score stood at 6.36 points, down 0.1 points from the third quarter and a record low since 2013.
SOCIETY
Body found in valley
A 65-year-old man was found dead in a pool of water surrounded by rocks in a mountain valley in Pingtung County yesterday, local police said. The man, a resident of Laiyi Township’s (來義) Danlin Village (丹林), was reported missing on Saturday, police said, adding that an investigation has been launched. The man showed no vital signs when he was found at the bottom of a 15m deep valley. The man was last seen walking toward the entrance of an old hiking path in the mountains in search of a water source, police said, adding that he was found about 20 minutes’ walk away from where the path began. Separately, a car overturned in Pingtung County yesterday after skidding off the road while traveling northbound on the Provincial Highway No. 1. All five passengers in the car were rescued and sent to a nearby hospital where they were treated for minor injuries, police 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