HEALTH
Blood bank seeks donations
The Taiwan Blood Services Foundation’s blood bank is running low on supplies and the government is calling for more donations. The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday said that according to the foundation’s statistics as of Friday, it has only four-and-a-half days (27,403 bags) of supplies left, which is enough to meet normal operating demands from hospitals, but still less than usual, and it hopes to increase the amount to ensure an adequate supply for the Lunar New Year holiday. The foundation said a low supply situation often occurs at this time of the year, and is likely associated with cold weather or more sick people being ineligible to donate blood.
TRAVEL
Men caught with cash
A man was on Friday caught allegedly trying to smuggle a large sum of New Taiwan dollars out of the nation at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Aviation police said the 66-year-old man, surnamed Yu (俞), was scheduled to take a 2:15pm flight to Hong Kong, but was stopped at an X-ray check and discovered to be carrying NT$10.5 million (US$311,526) hidden inside a fruit gift box. On Thursday, another man, surnamed Wang (王), was also caught with about NT$1.5 million hidden in a special belt and stockings. The 41-year-old man said he wanted to use the money to buy groceries in Hong Kong. The law requires passengers and transportation service personnel traveling into and out of the nation to declare foreign currency in their possession valued at more than US$10,000, or if they are carrying more than 20,000 yuan.
CHARITY
Gou gives cash for bedding
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) yesterday donated NT$10 million to buy bedding for those in need as the nation was hit by the worst cold spell in a decade. The donation is to be used to buy winter bedding such as quilts and sleeping bags for those in need, said the YongLin Healthcare Foundation, which was founded by Gou. The foundation said Gou decided to provide the financial assistance after it received an inquiry from a single mother over the possibility of getting quilts, since her family has only one quilt. The single mother feared that her family would be harmed by the strong cold front, the foundation said. The donation by Gou aims to buy 10,000 to 15,000 quilts or sleeping bags to keep needy families warm, the foundation said.
ENVIRONMENT
Green plan unveiled
The New Taipei City Government yesterday unveiled the “Jinshan initiative,” which calls for sustainable use of natural resources, coexistence of people and land and the promotion of eco-friendly agriculture. The initiative was jointly created with the Taiwan Ecological Engineering Development Foundation and was inspired by the arrival of a Siberian crane in the city’s Jinshan District (金山) in December 2014. New Taipei City Deputy Mayor Chen Shen-hsien (陳伸賢) said the Siberian crane’s arrival has drawn the public’s attention to conservation issues and the development of local communities. Chen said he looks forward to working out a resolution on land use with local residents and pushing for an environmental revitalization campaign. With the goal of promoting the coexistence of living, production and ecology, the city government is to integrate government resources to establish a production and marketing framework friendly to agriculture, according to the initiative.
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