DIPLOMACY
US senators to arrive today
Three US senators are to visit Taiwan today and meet senior officials to discuss security and other issues, the de facto US embassy in Taipei said yesterday. US senators Tammy Duckworth and Dan Sullivan of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as Christopher Coons of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would travel to Taiwan today, the American Institute in Taiwan said. Their trip is part of a larger visit to the Indo-Pacific region, it said, adding: “The bipartisan congressional delegation will meet with senior Taiwan leaders to discuss US-Taiwan relations, regional security and other significant issues of mutual interest.” Their visit would occur as Taiwan contends with a spike in COVID-19 cases and has complained about China trying to block access to vaccines.
EDUCATION
NTU ranks among top 20
National Taiwan University (NTU) rose one spot to 20th in the Asia University Rankings, released on Wednesday by London-based Times Higher Education. It is the first time the university has ranked in the top 20 since 2016, according to the annual magazine. The rankings this year include 551 universities from 30 countries and territories. A total of 38 Taiwanese universities appear on the list, with eight in the top 100, both record highs for the nation. The Taiwanese schools in the top 100 are NTU, Taipei Medical University (30th), National Tsing Hua University (54th), China Medical University (64th), National Yang-Ming University (78th), National Chiao Tung University (90th), National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (91st) and National Cheng Kung University (97th). The universities are evaluated based on teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income.
CRIME
Vietnamese rescued
A Vietnamese worker who was allegedly taken forcibly by debt collectors from Nantou County to neighboring Changhua County was freed during a police raid this week, police in Nantou County said yesterday. Police said they received a report that a Vietnamese worker in Nantou’s Jhushan Township (竹山) was kidnapped early on Wednesday, and were able to identify and track the vehicles that were used. Police rescued the worker during a raid in Changhua’s Beidou Township (北斗) and arrested eight other Vietnamese men, who were allegedly members of an illegal debt collecting gang. The case has been sent to the Nantou District Prosecutors’ Office for investigation.
SOCIETY
Memorial vandalized
A canopy tent set up at Freedom Square in Taipei to pay tribute to the victims of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing was vandalized by an unidentified man on Friday. The incident occurred at about 8pm, said Richa Guo (郭歷軒), campaign manager of the New School for Democracy, one of the organizers of this year’s commemoration event. Three people approached the pavilion at that time, when the event was about to end, and one of them suddenly knocked over decorations, Guo said, adding that the other two filmed the incident. The attacker was immediately apprehended by police at the scene and brought to a nearby precinct, Guo said. A police officer confirmed that a man in his 40s was apprehended in relation with the incident. The man, who the police said appeared to be mentally unstable, reportedly told police he was acting out of displeasure with the government’s vaccine policy.
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