DEFENSE
‘Liaoning’ sails through Strait
A Chinese aircraft carrier on Friday sailed through the Taiwan Strait without showing any abnormal activity, the Ministry of National Defense said. The Liaoning sailed southwest along the Strait’s median line and was expected to leave the air defense identification zone at 9pm on Friday, the ministry said. The carrier was accompanied by a number of other combat ships after sailing from its home port of Qingdao in Shandong Province, and was expected to conduct a cross-regional ocean voyage, the ministry said, adding that it was closely monitoring the situation. The Liaoning was last seen in the Strait in July last year, heading northeast after attending the 20th anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the UK to China.
EDUCATION
Ex-minister to be NTU head
Former National Development Council minister Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) on Friday was elected president of National Taiwan University (NTU). Kuan was chosen over four other candidates: Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences director Chou Mei-yin (周美吟), Administrative Affairs vice president and Department of Physics professor Chang Ching-ray (張慶瑞), Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia professor Chen Ming-hsien (陳銘憲) and Department of History professor Chen Jo-shui (陳弱水). Kuan is to take over for Yang Pan-chyr (楊泮池), who chose to step down after his term expired in June last year. Kuan, who received a doctorate degree in economics from the University of California, San Diego, served as council minister from 2014 to 2015 and was head of the Council for Economic Planning and Development from 2013 to 2014.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Policy site adds Vietnamese
A Vietnamese-language section has been added to the New Southbound Policy Portal to improve communication about the policy and boost ties with Vietnam, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The portal compiles news about government policies and media reports related to the push to develop closer ties with Southeast Asian nations. It also links to the Web sites of the representative offices of the policy’s target countries, making news about the nations’ development, local happenings and consular information easier to access. As part of ongoing government efforts to raise regional awareness of the portal, an Indonesian-language version (nspp.mofa.gov.tw/nsppid) was launched on Nov. 28 and the section in Vietnamese (nspp.mofa.gov.tw/nsppvn) was set up on Friday, the ministry said.
HEALTH
Chickens culled in Yunlin
A chicken farm in Yunlin County has been infected with a subtype of the highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza virus, leading to the culling of 10,461 birds, the city’s Animal and Plant Disease Control Center said on Friday. Center official Cheng An-kuo (鄭安國) said it collected tissue samples on Tuesday after receiving a report of abnormal deaths of about 12,500 chickens. Samples taken from the farm were then analyzed and determined to be avian flu, Cheng said. It was the second culling to occur in Yunlin County this week, following the killing of 15,239 chickens at a farm in the county’s Yuanchang Township (元長) on Monday, Council of Agriculture data showed. Avian flu generally peaks during the cool season from January to April, Cheng said, urging farmers to report any cases of abnormal poultry deaths to the authorities as quickly as possible to prevent it from spreading.
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,