CRIME
Customs seizes fake drugs
Customs authorities confiscated a package of drugs from China containing two banned pharmaceutical products disguised as a Japanese constipation remedy brand, the Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday. The counterfeit medicine looks almost the same as the genuine product, but contains a combination of the banned substances sibutramine and phenolphthalein, which are carcinogenic and could be fatal to humans, administration official Dai Hsueh-yung (戴雪詠) said. Sibutramine is the active ingredient in Reductil, a weight-loss drug that was banned because it increases the risk of heart attack, stroke and even death, while phenolphthalein is an ingredient once found in over-the-counter laxatives until it was labeled as a potential carcinogen.
IMMIGRATION
Indonesian dies in escape
A female Indonesian migrant worker yesterday died after she jumped from the third floor of a building and sustained head injuries during a raid, the National Immigration Agency said. The Taoyuan office of the agency’s Northern Taiwan Administration Corps received a tip-off on Wednesday night of a number of absconded migrant workers at a factory in the city’s Tayuan District (大園). During the raid, immigration officers found 17 allegedly illegal migrant workers, four of whom tried to flee, including the female worker in her 30s identified as Danisah, they said. She showed no vital signs before arriving at a hospital, where she was pronounced dead by doctors after failed attempts to resuscitate her. Several others sustained minor injuries. Authorities have begun an investigation of the incident and have notified the employers of the migrant workers. To ensure the security of the upcoming Summer Universiade in Taipei, immigration authorities said they have stepped up inspections of large public places and possible hideouts for absconded migrant workers.
SOCIETY
Cost of living 34th highest
Taiwan’s cost of living index was the 34th-highest among 115 nations in a mid-year reported released by global online data Web site Numbeo. The online database determines a nation’s cost of living index by comparing rent, groceries and restaurant indices with local purchasing power. The report showed that Bermuda has replaced Switzerland as having the highest cost of living, followed by Iceland in third, Norway and the Bahamas. Denmark, the US Virgin Islands, Japan, Israel and Singapore rounded out the top 10 nations on the list.
ENTERTAINMENT
Online videos a part of life
Taiwanese spend an average of 7.3 hours per week watching online video programming, with one in four spending more than 12 hours per week, an Institute for Information Industry survey found. Watching online videos has become part of the daily life of people younger than 44, the survey found, with 25 percent of respondents in the 25 to 34 age group spending more than 12 hours per week and 56 percent of those in the 35 to 44 demographic spending more than five hours per week. The best-known brand name for online video is iQiyi, with 94.7 percent of those polled knowing the name, followed by KKTV at 75 percent, the Innovative DigiTech-Enabled Applications and Service Institute said. The survey found that Netflix enjoys the highest customer loyalty, with 42.3 percent of respondents expressing interest in continuing to subscribe, followed by Taiwan Mobile’s myVideo service at 31.3 percent.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai