EDUCATION
NTU rises in rankings
National Taiwan University (NTU) has been ranked eighth in this year’s Emerging Economies University Rankings, up two spots from last year. The rankings, compiled by the London-based Times Higher Education magazine, listed 533 universities in 47 nations. Besides Taiwan, the other nations with universities in the top 10 were China, which claimed seven of the 10 places, Russia and South Africa. China’s Tsinghua University, Peking University and Zhejiang University retained the top three spots. The number of Taiwanese universities in the rankings increased to 36 from 32 last year, with four others listed in the top 50 — Taipei Medical University (28th), National Tsing Hua University (29th), National Chiao Tung University (42nd) and National Cheng Kung University (45th). The universities were ranked based on their scores in four categories — learning environment; volume and quality of published research; level of internationalization; and relationship with the business sector.
HEALTH
Poor air quality forecast
Air quality is expected to remain poor in parts of the west of the nation until Thursday next week due to a lack of wind to disperse atmospheric pollutants, the Environmental Protection Administration said. The lack of wind is the result of a weakening cold air mass after temperatures nationwide rebounded on Wednesday, the agency said. From Monday to Wednesday next week, at night and in the early morning, areas south of Hsinchu and Miaoli counties could see surface temperature inversions that cause air quality in those areas to be unhealthy, it said. Temperature inversion is a reversal of the normal behavior in the troposphere, in which a layer of cool air is overlain by warmer air. It plays a major role in air quality, especially during the winter. As pollutants from vehicles and industry are emitted, the inversion traps these near ground level.
CRIME
Woman found guilty of libel
A woman surnamed Yu (游) has been found guilty of breaching Article 310 of the Criminal Code for badmouthing a man she dated, with the New Taipei District Court ruling that she should serve 30 days in prison or pay a NT$30,000 fine. Yu was accused of libel by a man surnamed Hou (侯), after Yu posted an account of a meeting with Hou on an online forum. Yu said that she met Hou — who was attending the same university — after a party and Hou had tried to date her. Yu said she had agreed to meet him for dinner, but disliked the way he conducted himself, writing: “I was astounded and just wanted to leave the restaurant.” Yu also implied that Hou was a stalker, writing: “Who would want to be a weirdo’s girlfriend,” as well as calling him “delusional” and a “pervert.”
TOURISM
Kinmen woos local firms
Representatives of local travel operators this week took in the sights of Kinmen as part of efforts to attract more tourists to the offshore county. The county is looking to build on its efforts to attract tourists by including more interactive experiences, as well as do-it-yourself activities, said Golden Universal Travel director Sun Shu-te (孫樹德), who helped organize the tour. The tour included guides with first-hand experience of Kinmen’s military history, as they have proven to be especially popular among tourists, Sun said. Kinmen County Tourism Department Director Ting Chien-kang (丁健剛) said that the local government would continue to work with travel operators to rejuvenate tourism.
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