CULTURE
Festival to have test run
A trial run at the main venue of the Taiwan Lantern Festival in Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) will be held tomorrow ahead of the festival’s official opening on Saturday, the county government said. This year’s festival will be held in two locations: the main venue in Huwei from Saturday to Feb. 19 and in the county’s Beigang Township (北港) from today to Feb. 19, the county government said. During the festival, the county is to display 3,000 lanterns at 21 sites in the two main areas, which together cover more than 50 hectares. One of the sites will showcase the cultures of five Southeast Asian nations, while another will feature traditional Taiwanese glove puppetry, the county government said. The main lantern at the Huwei site, a 23m-high phoenix, will be lit up at 7pm on Saturday. To ensure that people with disabilities as well as babies and toddlers have equal access to the lantern areas, the county government said it has ensured barrier-free access at the sites so that people with disabilities can visit them.
FOOD
New regulation for butter
The Food and Drug Administration yesterday announced that from July 1, food producers will not be allowed to label butter products that contain less than 80 percent milk fat as “butter.” Margarine products with at least 80 percent edible fat or oil content must be labeled “margarine,” while those that have an edible fat or oil content of between 10 and 80 percent are to be labeled “fat spread,” and not as “vegetable butter.” Companies that mislabel the products may be fined between NT$30,000 and NT$3 million (US$969.52 and US$96,952), while those found guilty of intentionally putting false labels on the products may be fined up to NT$4 million, the agency said.
CRIME
Former lawmaker indicted
The Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday charged former Democratic Progressive Party legislator Chiu Chui-chen (邱垂貞) with insulting public functionaries after he cursed at police officers when he was stopped for a routine traffic check last year. “I am legislator Chiu Chui-chen,” Chiu told officers when he was stopped in his car on April 13 at the Dayuan Interchange of Freeway No. 2. He refused to exit his vehicle and said the police “usually” target him. Chiu’s ensuing verbal outburst prompted the police officers to take legal action. Chiu, 65, later apologized and admitted using swear words, saying that he had been stopped by police three times in a week. Chiu yesterday apologized again for making impertinent remarks.
DIPLOMACY
Minister Lee visits Haiti
Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) on Sunday arrived in Haiti, where he is to stay until Friday, heading a Taiwanese delegation attending the inauguration of Haitian president-elect Jovenel Moise, the ministry said yesterday. Lee is to represent President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at Moise’s inauguration as the 58th president of the Republic of Haiti today, it said. He is to congratulate an important diplomatic ally on behalf of the Taiwanese government and public, the ministry said. During his visit, Lee is to meet with Moise, Haiti’s outgoing provisional President Jocelerme Privert and Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs Pierrot Delienne, while also visiting the headquarters of Food for the Poor-Haiti and a Taiwanese-invested textile factory, it 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