■ Politics
Cabinet to resign May 12
The current Cabinet will resign en masse at its weekly meeting on May 12 in the lead-up to the inauguration of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday. Yu was speaking to reporters after taking part in a ground-breaking ceremony for a 12-inch silicon-wafer plant launched by Promos Technologies at the Central Science-based Industrial Park in Taichung. In line with the Constitution, the Cabinet must resign en masse before Chen and Lu are sworn in for their second term on May 20, Yu said. The premier also urged people not to speculate on the Cabinet's new lineup, instead calling on everyone to join forces with the government in improving the economy and carrying out a wide range of reforms. Cabinet spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said on Monday that the composition of the new Cabinet would demonstrate the government's commitment in meeting high public expectations for a progressive society ruled by law.
■ Public welfare
Medical services extended
The Veterans Affairs Commission is considering opening beds in hospitals and old age homes under its management to retired members of the police and civil servants, a service currently reserved for retired military personnel, the commission's director, Teng Tsu-lin (鄧祖琳), said yesterday. "We are following the example we saw in South Korea to make the consideration. The National Police Administration has agreed to the idea, and we are working on the details," Teng said. Citing his observation in a recent trip to South Korea, Teng said: "The care houses for the elderly that are run by the South Korean government accept not only retired service members but also those of the police force and civil servants." The medical network is comprised of three general hospitals, 12 regional hospitals and 18 care houses for the elderly. It offers a total of 3,870 beds.
■ Diplomacy
MOFA praises TRA
The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) -- the US law that regulates exchanges with Taiwan in the absence of formal diplomatic ties -- has contributed much to promoting substantive Taiwan-US relations over the past 25 years,Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Richard Shih (石瑞琦) said yesterday. Shih made the remarks on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the act's passage into law. The act took effect after the US switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. The TRA has also contributed to the maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait over the past quarter century, he said. "The ministry has consistently recognized the Taiwan Relations Act's value, and we hope that the US government will continue to abide by the act faithfully," Shih said.
■ Agriculture
Farmers' Web site launched
A Web site that will enable local farmers to better cope with production oversupply will be launched soon, an official of the Changhua Farmers' Association said yesterday. The site will give farmers the opportunity to distribute and sell their products on the Internet. Liao Chen-hsien, secretary-general of the Changhua Farmers' Association, the key promoter of the Web site in cooperation with private businesses, said that the main purpose of the service was to provide farmers with a means of selling their products directly and conveniently to avoid being exploited in the marketplace.
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,