■TRAVEL
MOFA raises travel alert
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has raised its travel alert level for Indonesia and the UK to yellow — the second lowest on its four-scale system — over concerns of potential terrorist attacks, it said in a statement yesterday. The ministry also issued a red travel alert, the highest on the scale, for Iraq. MOFA said Indonesia — especially Bali, which attracts the most Taiwanese tourists — could possibly be targeted for a terrorist attack. It also issued the new alert for Britain after the UK’s Home Office raised its domestic terrorism threat level late last month from “substantial” to “severe,” the second-highest in its five-tier threat warning system, which means an attack is highly likely. A yellow alert warns travelers to take extra precautions and reassess their travel plans for the place in question. The terrorist group al-Qaeda could also launch attacks in Iraq, prompting the ministry to issue the highest red alert before the country holds its parliamentary elections on March 7.
■SOCIETY
Women want new spouses
One in three women would marry other men if they were given a second chance in life, a survey published yesterday said, amid warnings that the nation was facing an “infidelity crisis.” The figure for men who would swap their wives for new ones if only they could was lower, at 17 percent, said the survey of 1,076 married people conducted by the Millennium Cultural and Educational Foundation. The foundation, which promotes family values, warned of a growing “infidelity crisis” because 9.1 percent of the couples interviewed reported having had extramarital affairs. The survey showed 11.5 percent considered such affairs as “playing games and nothing to be taken seriously,” while more than half said it was okay to be close friends with members of the opposite sex after marriage.
■HEALTH
Straws fail test: survey
Tests on a small sampling of straws have found that more than 10 percent contained hazardous levels of lead, the Consumers’ Foundation said yesterday. Foundation chairman Hsieh Tien-jen (謝天仁) said the group collected 80 straws in November and December from breakfast outlets and night markets in the Greater Taipei area, Taoyuan County, Taichung County, and Tainan, Kaohsiung and Taichung cities. The tests found that the lead content in 10 of the samples, or 12.5 percent, exceeded the 100 parts per million standard. The straws were also tested for cadmium, but they all fell within the limits. “The latest test has not shown marked improvement from the previous test,” Hsieh said. He urged the Department of Health to ask shop owners using substandard items to destroy them or face fines ranging from NT$30,000 to NT$150,000.
■ARTS
E Chen exhibit opens
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is hosting a solo exhibition, Wunderkammer featuring the sculpture installations and architectural proposals of young artist E Chen (陳逸堅). Chen’s works are rich in imagination, but he drew inspiration from real life, the organizer of the exhibition said. The exhibition, which opened on Saturday, includes six installation works and three architectural proposals, the museum said. One of Chen’s architectural proposals is to establish a Titanic-themed casino in Las Vegas. After the exhibition ends on March 14, one of his architectural proposals, Lost City, will be shown in London.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT