Five relatives of the nine Chinese victims of doomed CAL flight CI611 arrived in Taiwan yesterday evening, with another 30 expected to arrive today, Shi Hwei-yow (許惠祐), Secretary-General of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF, 海基會) told reporters during a news briefing yesterday.
Shi said that that no Chinese officials would accompany the relatives to Taiwan.
Shi said that staff from the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the Taiwan chapter of the Red Cross Society would accompany the group to Penghu.
Some family members and relatives of Chinese victims from the southeastern province of Fujian, the province nearest Taiwan, expressed their wish to come to Taiwan via the sea route between the Chinese port city of Xiamen and Taiwan's outlying island of Kinmen.
The MAC's Director of Information and liaison Chen Chung-hong (陳崇弘) said yesterday, "We have to discuss the matter at an internal meeting, but we will certainly do whatever we can to assist the relatives of Chinese victims."
Similarly, asked whether the bodies of the Chinese victims could be returned to China via the sea route, Shi said that that the SEF would have to discuss the matter with the MAC but that, "we will do our best to assist."
Meanwhile, a Chinese fishing vessel sailing in the western portion of the Taiwan Strait yesterday morning found the body of a man. The body was handed over to Taiwanese rescuers.
The SEF sent a letter yesterday to its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS, 海協會) to thank China for its help.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin (
"I am deeply concerned over the heavy loss of life and property from a China Airlines crash. Compatriots across the Strait are our brethren," state television quoted Jiang as saying.
"I express my profound condolences to victims from Taiwan, Hong Kong, the mainland and other victims and extend my sincere sympathy to relatives of victims" Jiang said.
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
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
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,