■ Cross-strait ties
Globalization can beat China
A globalized Taiwan will be able to stand up to the growing threat and challenge posed by China, Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Chen Min-tong (陳明通) said yesterday. Speaking at a Taipei seminar on Chinese affairs, Chen said Taiwan should adapt itself to the world trend of globalization. If Taiwan can globalize, it will be able to rise to the challenge of the economic and security threat posed by China, and to help convert it into a free democratic country, he said. Chen said China is growing into a regional power and is posing a major economic and security threat to its neighboring countries. This growing trend will peak in 2008, when the Olympic Games are held in Beijing, he said.
■ China incident
Officer kidnapped in Strait
Coast Guard Admin-istration officer Chiang Shao-nan (江少南) was abducted by Chinese fishermen yesterday afternoon while on duty. The administration pointed out that the Chinese fishing boat Min Chang Yu 4108 crossed the Taiwan Strait's middle line yesterday afternoon. Chiang and three officers boarded the boat to check up on the crew. However, the crew threatened Chiang and another officer with a knife, and the other two officers retreated. The officer who was kept on the boat with Chiang managed to get away by jumping overboard. The fishing boat eventually managed to return to China. The Straights Exchange Foundation contacted China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait upon hearing about the abduction, and demanded Chiang's immediate return. The foundation said the two sides were still negotiating.
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,