HEALTH
Smoking rate rises slightly
The nation recorded a smoking rate of 17.1 percent last year, up slightly from 16.4 percent in 2014 and marking the first year-on-year increase in seven years, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. The figure translates into a smoking population of 3.27 million last year, an increase of 170,000 from the previous year, said Lo Su-ying (羅素英), head of the HPA’s Health Education and Tobacco Control Division. While the smoking rate among men rose from 29.2 percent in 2014 to 29.9 percent last year, that female smokers jumped from 3.5 percent to 4.2 percent, Lo said. She said low cigarette prices in Taiwan are a possible reason for the increase in the nation’s smoking rate. She said that a decision by the Legislative Yuan to raise the cigarette surcharge by NT$20 in 2013 pushed the number of people seeking smoking cessation services up from 380,000 that year to 620,000 in 2014.
CRIME
Taiwanese arrested in Tokyo
A Taiwanese man was arrested at Narita Airport in Tokyo after he was found to be carrying nearly 15kg of amphetamine on Dec. 15 last year, according to Japanese media reports. The man, surnamed Chen (陳), who was traveling with a tour group, was carrying the drug in containers labeled in Chinese-language as tea, the reports said, adding the containers were distributed in his checked luggage and backpack. With a total weight of 14.9kg, it was the second-largest shipment of drugs seized at Narita Airport since it opened in 1989, according to the reports, which put the street value of the amphetamine at around ¥1 billion (US$8.5 million). Chen reportedly tried to convince the police that friends of his had asked him on the day of his departure from Taiwan to carry the packages, but that he had no idea what they contained. He is being held in detention by airport police and could face at least 15 years in prison if convicted, the reports said.
TOURISM
Air traffic hits record
Taiwan’s air passenger traffic amounted to a record high of 57.81 million trips last year, as the nation stepped up efforts to build up its aviation industry, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said yesterday. Of the 57.81 million passengers, overseas, cross-strait and domestic travelers accounted for 36.18 million, 11.85 million and 9.77 million respectively, the agency said. The figure, up 5 percent from last year, surpassed the record of 56.3 million air passengers set in 1997, CAA data show. Air traffic in Taiwan began to slide in 1997 due to the start of high-speed rail services between Taipei and Kaohsiung. In 2008, a record low of 35.23 million air passengers were handled in the nation’s airports.
TRANSPORTATION
Nangang HSR on track
The new Nangang station on the high-speed railway (HSR) line is expected to start commercial operation in mid-July, as construction work has been progressing smoothly, the Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) said. The station in Taipei’s Nangang District (南港) is the 12th on the high-speed railway line, which has one stop roughly every 30km. Just over a month ago, three new stations were opened on the line, in Miaoli, Changhua and Yunlin counties. During an inspection earlier this week, Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said the Nangang station was planned at first as a logistics station to service and resupply trains, but was changed to a regular operational station, which is expected to play an important role in the development of the Nangang 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