CULTURE
Museum ethics scrutinized
This year’s Taiwan International Human Rights Film Festival, which begins on Friday, aims to explore the ethical questions surrounding the ownership of museum collections, the organizers said. Under the themes “Whose Museum?” and “Human Rights Panorama,” the National Human Rights Museum (NHRM) has curated screenings of 11 films highlighting the educational role of museums and the political conflicts over appropriated cultural artifacts. One of the festival’s more topical inclusions is Dutch director Oeke Hoogendijk’s The Treasures of Crimea, which documents the geopolitical wrangling over a collection of historical artifacts from Ukraine stranded in an Amsterdam museum following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. Admission is free, with ticket information available on the festival’s Web site. An online version of the festival is also to be held from Monday next week to Oct. 10.
DEFENSE
Uncrewed plane appears
Two Chinese aircraft flew into the southwestern part of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone on Saturday, one of which was a Rainbow CH-4 remote-controlled combat aerial vehicle, reportedly detected by Taiwan for the first time. Developed by China Aerospace Science and Technology, the CH-4 has a cruising speed of up to 180kph and a flight range of 3,500km. The other was a Y8 anti-submarine warplane, the Ministry of National Defense said. The two aircraft were among 20 Chinese aircraft and five naval ships detected in Taiwan’s vicinity on Saturday, the ministry said, adding that it scrambled combat air and naval patrols, and deployed defense missile systems in response. The ministry did not disclose the flight paths of the other 18 aircraft or the locations of the naval vessels.
TRAVEL
Island cruises proposed
Taiwan is working with international partners to develop pan-Asian island-hopping cruise vacations to revive the travel market, Ministry of Transportation and Communications Deputy Minister Chi Wen-chung (祁文中) said. At a cruise industry forum on Tuesday last week, Chi said that Taiwan is eyeing the formation of an “Asian archipelago cruise alliance” to organize routes along the East Asian island chain between South Korea and Indonesia. The ministry recently upgraded tourist center facilities and streamlined disease control measures at ports in Keelung and Kaohsiung, he said. Taiwan has been the second-largest cruise market in Asia, with about 1.06 million international travelers from 600 cruise ships arriving each year before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
TRAVEL
CAL opens Cebu, Thai routes
China Airlines (CAL) announced last week that it would soon launch direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Cebu in the Philippines and Chiang Mai in Thailand. The Taiwanese carrier said flights to Cebu, the second-largest city in the Philippines, would depart four days a week starting Dec. 1. The flights, which are to use an Airbus A321neo, are slated to depart at 7:40am. and arrive in Cebu at 10:35am, with return flights departing the Philippines at 11:35am, CAL said. Flights to Chiang Mai are set to begin on Jan. 20 on an A321neo, departing at 7:50am four days a week, arriving at 11am and departing Thailand at noon.
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