ASTRONOMY
Skygazers to see eclipse
A total solar eclipse is to occur on Wednesday, but skygazers in Taiwan are only to be able to see a partial eclipse, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said yesterday. The total eclipse is to last for 3 hours, 22 minutes from 8:16am to 11:38am, the museum said. However, the total eclipse will only be visible for two to four minutes from the Pacific and parts of Indonesia, including Sumatra, Borneo and Sulawesi, according to the museum, with the sun being 20 percent obscured by the moon during the event. In Taipei, the eclipse is to begin at 8:19am, reach its maximum point at 9:14am and end at 10:15am, the museum said.
TRAVEL
Avoid militants: ministry
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday advised against traveling to regions in Indonesia where militants are active, in light of a possible attack in the Southeast Asian nation. The high-risk regions include Central Sulawesi, Papua and West Papua, the ministry said. Travelers should also pay extra attention while traveling in Indonesia’s bustling metropolitan areas, the ministry said. The ministry issued the warning after the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Feb. 25 published a travel advisory on its Web site, in which it said “recent indications suggest that terrorists may be in the advanced stages of preparing attacks in Indonesia.” The ministry currently maintains a “yellow” travel alert for Indonesia, which warns people to exercise caution and to review whether they should travel to the affected area.
EDUCATION
NCCU to start new program
National Chengchi University (NCCU) on Thursday said that it plans to introduce a new undergraduate program in Southeast Asia studies next year due to growing economic ties between Taiwan and the region. University vice president Wang Jenn-hwan (王振寰) said that many of the university’s alumni who are conducting business in Southeast Asia have mentioned their need for talent with knowledge of Southeast Asian languages, economics and culture. After careful consideration, the university decided to launch the program and has submitted related plans to the Ministry of Education for review, Wang said, adding that the program is expected to start recruiting students next year. University secretary general Wang Wen-chieh (王文杰) said that Taiwan has great demand for talent familiar with Southeast Asia due to flourishing economic exchanges between Taiwan and the region and an increase in the number of new immigrants and foreign workers.
TOURISM
Japanese city seeks agents
Tosashimizu City on Japan’s Shikoku Island is offering students from a local university the chance to serve as its tourism ambassadors in a bid to attract Taiwanese tourists. Tosashimizu Mayor Mitsunobu Hijiya on Wednesday signed an internship cooperation agreement with the Taipei City University of Science and Technology, offering students a chance to serve as tourism ambassadors. Hijiya said the city has spectacular natural beauty, while the inauguration of direct air links between Taipei and Takamatsu, also on Shikoku Island, has helped boost the number of visitors from Taiwan. The students are to receive a ¥140,000 (US$1,230) internship allowance and are to be provided with accommodation, as well as transportation between Taiwan and Japan. More than 3 million Taiwanese visited Japan last year.
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
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
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,