■Japan
Koizumi lawsuit filed
More than 200 Taiwanese filed a lawsuit yesterday against the Japanese govern-ment and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi over his visits to Tokyo's contro-versial Yasukuni Shrine, a lawyer involved in the case announced. The suit was filed by 236 people, mainly relatives of Taiwanese who died in World War II, at the Osaka District Court. The suit demanded a total of Japanese Yen 2.36 million (US$19,700) in damages, or Japanese Yen 10,000 (US$83) per plaintiff in compensa-tion, saying Koizumi's visit to the shine violates Japan's Constitution, the lawyer said. On Jan. 14, Koizumi visited the shrine, which honors the 2.47 million Japanese who died in wars since 1869, including 14 Class-A war criminals. It was Koizumi's third visit to the shrine since he became prime minister two years ago. The lawyer said the plaintiffs suffered psycho-logical damage from Koi-zumi's visits to the shrine.
■ Environment
Cherry trees for Taiwan
A private Japanese group dedicated to promoting sakura (Japanese cherry blossom) plantation around the world has begun helping to grow more sakura trees around Taiwan, the Sankei Shumbun reported yester-day. The non-profit Ikuohkai (Japanese Sakura Cultiva-tion Society) sent 200 sakura seedlings to Taipei over the weekend, preparing for a presentation ceremony to be held today at the Ambas-sador Hotel, the report said. Ikuohkai president Tenkoko Sonoda will present the seedlings at the ceremony to former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) who will accept them on behalf of the Tai-wanese. The root of the idea of helping Taiwan grow sakura formed months ago when Tokyo socialite Kiyoko Ichimora visited Taiwan to learn Peking opera and found that many Taiwanese like the trees. Ichimora talked Sonoda into making the donation and the Ikuoh-kai decided to help grow at least 10,000 sakura trees, including a plantation near Sun Moon Lake, over the next several years, the paper reported. The first 200 seedlings will be planted at National Taiwan University's Agricultural and Forest Research Institute and later transplanted to Yangming-shan and in Hsinchu.
■ Diplomacy
Panamanian envoy in Taipei
Ambassador Ramel Adames, Panama's representative to the WTO, arrived in Taipei yesterday for a five-day visit. During the visit, Adames will call on Legislative Yuan Vice Speaker Chiang Ping-kun (江丙坤), Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kau Ying-mao (高英茂) and attend a luncheon hosted by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Hwang (黃瀧元). He will also visit the National Palace Museum, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park and other places before departing on Friday.
■ Travel
New law affects visitors
Travelers to Russia should carry their immigration cards with them at all times in case of police checks, said a press release issued by the Ministry of Economic Affairs's Board of Foreign Trade yesterday. Visitors who fail to abide by the new regulation will be fined between US$70 and US$140 and could even be deported. The regulation was enacted to stem illegal immigrants from countries of the former Soviet Union because most of their nationals can enter Russia without applying for visas. Foreigners with or without visas are required to fill in immigration cards, which can now can be obtained at all Russian customs offices.
■Cross-strait ties
Illegal migrants nabbed
Twenty-three Chinese were caught at a small fishing port in Taipei County early yesterday, the Coast Guard Administration reported. Working on a tip-off, coast guard members lay in wait for two days at the Huangkang port before nabbing the 23 Chinese at around 2am yesterday in a van that had been awaiting them. Fifteen of the group were young women and dressed in revealing outfits, leading authorities to believe that they were going to work in the sex trade. The Coast Guard discovered that the Chinese were originally to be "delivered" in the small hours of Saturday to Huangkang. However, the skipper of the vessel transporting the Chinese did not make the delivery after he spotted police and undercover personnel at the port.
■ Politics
PFP calls for alliance
Members of the PFP caucus called on their KMT counterparts yesterday to discuss cooperation in the legislature. PFP party whips Chung Shao-ho (鍾紹和), Chiu Yi (邱毅), Chin Huei-chu (秦慧珠) and Cheng Chin-ling (鄭金玲) called on the KMT's Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) and party whip Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) to discuss a cooperation mechanism. Chung suggested that the two parties could consider jointly holding caucus meeting on major issues if necessary so that the cooperation will be closer. Chiu said that members of the caucus of the two parties should communicate regularly each week and jointly hold caucus meetings so that their members can communicate with each other and be consistent in their stance. "The people are watching if the PFP-KMT can cooperate and if the two parties can cooperate in the legislature, then the people will have confidence in such cooperation," Chiu added.
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,