TRANSPORT
NY sends birthday wishes
New York City’s subway operator has made a video wishing the Taipei MRT System a happy birthday, as this month marks the 20th anniversary of the Taipei metro. Available on YouTube, the video was made by New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and joins other metro systems around the world in celebrating the anniversary. The first line of the Taipei system, which now has five lines, began operations on March 28, 1996. It was Taiwan’s first metro system. The Taipei Rapid Transit Corp, which operates the system, is organizing a series of events to celebrate the anniversary.
WEATHER
No sunshine on the horizon
Taiwan’s weather forecast remains cool and wet for the coming week due to the strengthening of a northeast monsoon weather front, a meteorologist said yesterday. In particular, heavy rain is expected from today until Tuesday as a result of increased moisture, National Central University Department of Atmospheric Sciences professor Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said. The Central Weather Bureau yesterday issued a heavy rain warning for Hsinchu City and Taichung, as well as Hsinchu, Miaoli, Nantou and Hualien counties. The bureau also issued a poor visibility warning for western areas and the outlying islands of Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu due to fog and low clouds. As of yesterday morning, seven passenger flights scheduled to depart from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport were delayed due to fog, Taiwan Taoyuan Airport Co said.
BASEBALL
Taiwan ranks third in world
Taiwan has achieved a new high in terms of its baseball power, ranking the world’s third-highest in points, behind only Japan and the US, the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) said on Friday. The WBSC said Taiwan scored a record-high 4,702 points in its Baseball World Ranking, moving a notch ahead of its previous ranking and pushing Cuba, which had 3,727 points, to fifth place. Japan holds the world’s No. 1 spot with 5,154 points, followed by the US at 5,091 points. The number of points is calculated by the number of games in which each nation’s team scores in competitions worldwide. South Korea also secured a record-high place on the WBSC ranking, coming in fourth with 4,641 points, up from eighth place, thanks to its final victory in last year’s WSBC Premier 12.
ENTERTAINMENT
K-pop star arrives home
Taiwanese K-pop star Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜) arrived at Kaohsiung International Airport from South Korea yesterday. Local media reported that she is to take a junior-high school scholastic aptitude test today. Born in Tainan, the 16-year-old is a member of South Korean girl group Twice, which debuted in October last year. She moved to South Korea in her second year of junior-high school to train with South Korean firm JYP Entertainment. Chou only has an elementary-school-level education, local media said, adding that by passing the test she would have the required academic credentials to continue her schooling in South Korea. In January, she became ensnared in controversy after China-based Taiwanese singer Huang An (黃安) accused her of supporting Taiwanese independence. Huang’s comments spurred Chinese netizens to attack Chou, resulting in her issuing an apology, saying “there is only one China... I have always felt proud of being Chinese.” The incident infuriated many Taiwanese, who accused JYP of forcing Chou to issue the apology.
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