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.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Actor Lee Wei (李威) was released on bail on Monday after being named as a suspect in the death of a woman whose body was found in the meeting place of a Buddhist group in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) last year, prosecutors said. Lee, 44, was released on NT$300,000 (US$9,148) bail, while his wife, surnamed Chien (簡), was released on NT$150,000 bail after both were summoned to give statements regarding the woman’s death. The home of Lee, who has retreated from the entertainment business in the past few years, was also searched by prosecutors and police earlier on Monday. Lee was questioned three
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