FISHING
EU to assess ‘yellow card’
An EU delegation is to evaluate the effectiveness of measures to stop illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in Taiwan, an EU official said on Thursday. The European Commission in October 2015 gave Taiwan a “yellow card” and warned that the nation was at risk of being identified as uncooperative in the fight against unregulated fishing. The EU official, who asked not to be named, said the withdrawal of the yellow card would depend the measures implemented to curb illegal and unregulated fishing. Taiwan’s fishing regulations have since improved, Council of Agriculture deputy head Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said.
WEATHER
Tropical storm brings rain
A tropical depression east of the Philippines is this year’s 20th tropical storm, the Central Weather Bureau said. As of 2pm yesterday, Tropical Storm Khanun was 530km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving west-southwest. Rain is expected in northern, eastern and southern Taiwan with extremely heavy rain possible in some eastern parts of the nation today and tomorrow, although the tropical storm is not expected to make landfall, the bureau said.
TRANSPORT
Wyoming ink license deal
Taiwan and Wyoming have signed a reciprocal agreement that allows licensed drivers to get a license in each other’s territory without taking written and road tests, a media release issued by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said on Thursday. The agreement takes effect immediately. Wyoming is the 25th US state to have entered into such an agreement with Taiwan.
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,