■Investment
Lu warns of risks in China
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) called on businesses yesterday to keep their hearts, commercial operations and capital in Taiwan and join hands with the government to create a brighter future for the nation. While meeting with a group of prominent businesswomen from Lions Clubs International, Lu said that the quick expansion of China's market is poised to have a negative impact on Taiwan's future development. As for the rush to invest in China, Lu said she hopes that Taiwanese manufacturers will think twice before carrying out investment projects there. If businesses continue to pour money into China, it will harm Taiwan's economic development, she warned. Noting that China has replaced the US as Taiwan's largest export market, Lu expressed great concern about the possibility that Taiwan will be eventually sinicized. To survive increasingly fierce international competition, Taiwan's industries should intensify their R&D efforts and promote global marketing, Lu added.
■ Party reform
DPP begins seminar
The DPP will open a two-day seminar on administrative reform today at the Taipei International Convention Center. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who also is DPP chairman, will serve as convener of the seminar and give a speech in his capacity as head of the party. DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) said party members from the Presidential Office, the Executive Yuan and the DPP legislative caucus, as well as DPP county and city chiefs and party officials, will take part in the two-day meeting. Chang said the meeting will serve as a concrete start for coordinating and integrating the mechanisms of the Presidential Office, the Cabinet, the party and its legislative caucus. The seminar will focus on six topics: the legal system and interior administration; finance and economics; culture, education and technology; public construction; social welfare and health; and national security.
■ Diplomacy
US expected to shun Chen
The likelihood of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) visiting the US this year is slim, according to members of a pro-Taiwan group in the US Congress. Republican Representative Dana Rohrabacher, one of the five co-chairpersons of the US Congressional Taiwan Caucus, speculated in an interview that because of the Iraq and North Korea crises, the George W. Bush administration might be courting China and refuse to allow Chen to visit. Rohrabacher said he would relay a message to Taiwan during a visit next week that the US considers itself to be "in a state of war" and that many issues, including Taiwan-US ties, will be put on the back burner.
■ Appointments
Tung takes up MOFA job
The director of Taiwan's representative office in Geneva has been appointed director-general of the International Organizations Department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). According to a MOFA statement, Tung Kuo-yu (董國猷) will succeed Shang Hsu-tzun (沈斯淳), who has been appointed director-general of the West Asian Affairs Department. Tung, 49, graduated from Chengchi University's Graduate School of Diplomacy and obtained a master's degree in politics from Houston University. He assumed the post as representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Geneva two years ago.
Agencies
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