SOCIETY
Pufferfish kills man
One person has died and eight were poisoned after consuming poisonous pufferfish — known in Japanese as fugu — in Nantou County on Saturday night, local authorities said. The poisoning occurred after a restaurant owner, surnamed Hung (洪), in the mountain town of Cinjing (清境) invited eight neighbors to a meal at his home that included pufferfish, Nantou County police said yesterday. The following morning, one of the guests, surnamed Yang (楊), noticed a numbing sensation in his mouth, hands and feet, and decided to go to Hung’s house to check on him, and after Hung failed to answer the door, Yang entered the house to find him lying on the ground without vital signs and called for an ambulance, police said. Hung was later pronounced dead, while the eight guests at the dinner were taken to hospital to be treated for non-life-threatening symptoms, police said. They had asked prosecutors to take samples of the fish for testing, the police said.
DIPLOMACY
Ukranian mayor visits
The Mayor of Bucha in northern Ukraine Anatoliy Fedoruk arrived in Taiwan with a delegation on Saturday, with the aim of attracting investment in construction projects planned by the city, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. After Moscow launched an invasion of Ukraine in February last year, Russian forces occupied Bucha for nearly a month, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, according to international media reports. During the delegation’s four-day trip, its members are to visit Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute (TSRI), Taiwan External Trade Development Council and the Taipei Computer Association. The government has worked closely with the Bucha City Government in recent years, including providing a donation of US$600,000 for the construction of an air-raid shelter and a children’s school in August, the ministry said. Taiwan also helped Bucha renovate 11 shelters, one kindergarten and nine houses in April last year, it added.
TRAFFIC
Smart inspection to start
Starting from March next year, the Highway Bureau is to employ smart road-inspection vehicles to collect data on the condition of the roads of Taiwan to facilitate timely repairs and more efficient road upkeep. The vehicles would be equipped with panoramic cameras, light detection and ranging systems and other instruments to automatically detect problems with roads such as potholes, and wear and tear, the bureau said. Artificial intelligence (AI) would then be employed to analyze the raw data, enabling maintenance units to better grasp the situation and determine whether issues require immediate attention, so repairs can be tackled quickly, it said.
CRIME
Ticket scalpers arrested
Police have arrested more than 20 people on suspicion of scalping tickets to the 30th BFA Asian Baseball Championship opener between Taiwan and South Korea at the Taipei Dome on Sunday. As of yesterday, a total of 23 people have been arrested on suspicion of violating the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), Taipei police said, adding that the suspects are mostly ordinary people, rather than professional ticket scalpers. A field-level seat ticket for Sunday’s game is priced at NT$600 on the ticketing platform tixCraft. The 13,000 tickets available for the game sold out minutes after going on sale at 12pm on Friday.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to