NATIONAL DEFENSE
Chinese aircraft spotted
A Chinese military aircraft was spotted entering Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone yesterday morning, the ninth time this month that such aircraft have been seen near the nation, the Ministry of National Defense said. Ministry spokesman Major General Shih Shun-wen (史順文) said the aircraft briefly entered the zone, prompting Taiwanese patrol aircraft to respond with radio warnings until it left. The movement by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army came after three US military aircraft flew over the Bashi Channel toward the South China Sea that same day. China’s South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative posted on Twitter that the US aircraft came in three separate intervals, consisting of an EP-3E reconnaissance aircraft, a P-8A maritime patrol aircraft and an aerial refueling KC-135T.
SOCIETY
Ximen plaza bans smoking
The plaza outside Taipei’s Ximen MRT Station is to become a nonsmoking area on Wednesday next week, but the city would not issue fines until August, the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection said. Throughout next month, it would warn smokers, and in August it would fine them NT$2,000 to NT$10,000, the department said. People who dispose of cigarette butts on the ground would face fines from NT$1,200 to NT$6,000, it said. The plaza, which covers the area west of the Ximen station between exits 1 and 6, is a gateway to one of the city’s most popular shopping and entertainment areas. Environmental Cleaning and Maintenance Division head head Huang Kuan-chu (黃寬助) said the area is a big draw for young people and foreign tourists, and the city is banning smoking there to improve the overall environment for visitors. The city also plans to ban smoking in areas around Taipei Main Station and the Taipei Travel Plaza next year, he added.
EDUCATION
Ministry approves merger
The Ministry of Education has approved a planned merger of National Yang-Ming University (NYMU) and National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), NCTU said on Wednesday. Pending the Executive Yuan’s approval, the research universities are to become one institution on Feb. 1 next year, it said. The universities plan to integrate their research resources in areas such as biotech, smart medicine, artificial intelligence, robotics and big data. NCTU last year ranked 227th and NYMU 287th in the QS World University Rankings. After the merger, NYCU is expected to rank about 156th, the document said. The universities in 2018 initiated the merger, and in March last year signed a memorandum of understanding.
TRAVEL
UNI increases festival flights
UNI Air on Wednesday announced that it would increase its flights between Taipei and Taitung for the county’s 10th hot air balloon festival, which starts next month. The Taitung County Government has held the Taiwan International Balloon Festival annually since 2011 at the Luye Highland. The festival takes place from July 11 to Aug. 30, the county said. To meet the demand, UNI Air, which normally flies 70-seat ATR 72 aircraft on its Taitung routes, said it would add an additional eight flights per week throughout the festival, and would use a larger 184-seat Airbus A321 jet on one of its flights on Fridays and one on Sundays. This means that the airline would be offering nearly 10,000 more seats during the two-month period compared with previous years, it said.
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