TRAVEL
More flights to China
Taiwan is to allow charter passenger flights from 13 additional locations in China to meet increased Lunar New Year holiday travel demand, the Civil Aeronautics Administration said yesterday. It said that regular direct flights are already offered between Taiwan and 15 cities in China. To accommodate an expected rise in demand around the Lunar New Year, the agency said it is accepting applications from carriers seeking to arrange charter flights from 13 select cities between Jan. 31 and Feb. 20. The 13 locations to which the charter flights are to be allowed are Shenyang, Wuxi, Haikou, Changsha, Xian, Jinan, Hefei, Nanchang, Tianjin, Wenzhou, Dalian, Guilin and Xuzhou. Although tourism links between Taiwan and China have been frozen for the past three years, over 300,000 Taiwanese are working in China as of 2021. Beijing halted independent travel to Taiwan on Aug. 1, 2019, citing poor cross-strait relations. It then suspended group travel in 2020. The rules remain in effect. Meanwhile, Taiwan, halted group travel to China at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to lift restrictions on most Chinese.
CRIME
Two found dead in Neihu
Prosecutors said they are investigating the deaths of two interior decorators found in a new residential building in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖). The two men, aged 24 and 27 years, were found dead at about midnight on Tuesday last week after losing contact with family members, the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office said. The family members entered the apartment with the help of the building’s security, trying to find the men, who reportedly arrived at the site at 7:30am, a police report said. Unable to find the men, the family members phoned them and heard ringtones coming from a bedroom inside the apartment. The family members then found the two men’s bodies inside an unfinished 63cm tall, 179cm long and 78cm wide bed, prosecutors said. There were neither apparent external injuries, nor signs of fighting at the scene, suggesting external intervention was unlikely, prosecutors added. While there was a strong smell in the room, follow-up tests showed no traces of toxic substances in the apartment, they said, adding that they were collecting more evidence and using computer tomography to learn what killed the workers.
POLAM KOPITIAM CASE: Of the two people still in hospital, one has undergone a liver transplant and is improving, while the other is being evaluated for a liver transplant A fourth person has died from bongkrek acid poisoning linked to the Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday, as two other people remain seriously ill in hospital. The first death was reported on March 24. The man had been 39 years old and had eaten at the restaurant on March 22. As more cases of suspected food poisoning involving people who had eaten at the restaurant were reported by hospitals on March 26, the ministry and the Taipei Department of Health launched an investigation. The Food and
The long-awaited Taichung aquarium is expected to open next year after more than a decade of development. The building in Cingshui District (清水) is to feature a large ocean aquarium on the first floor, coral display area on the second floor, a jellyfish tank and Dajia River (大甲溪) basin display on the third, a river estuary display and restaurant on the fourth, and a cafe and garden on the fifth. As it is near Wuci Fishing Port (梧棲漁港), many are expecting the opening of the aquarium to bring more tourism to the harbor. Speaking at the city council on Monday, Taichung City Councilor
A fourth person has died in a food poisoning outbreak linked to the Xinyi (信義) branch of Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in Taipei, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said on Monday. It was the second fatality in three days, after another was announced on Saturday. The 40-year-old woman experienced multiple organ failure in the early hours on Monday, and the family decided not to undergo emergency resuscitation, Wang said. She initially showed signs of improvement after seeking medical treatment for nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, but her condition worsened due to an infection, he said. Two others who
Taiwanese should be mindful when visiting China, as Beijing in July is likely to tighten the implementation of policies on national security following the introduction of two regulations, a researcher said on Saturday. China on Friday unveiled the regulations governing the law enforcement and judicial activities of national security agencies. They would help crack down on “illegal” and “criminal” activities that Beijing considers to be endangering national security, according to reports by China’s state media. The definition of what constitutes a national security threat in China is vague, Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said. The two procedural regulations are to provide Chinese