■ Law
Hsieh loses libel suit
The Taiwan High Court Kaohsiung Branch yesterday dropped Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) libel suit against four major officials of the Chinese-language newspaper the United Daily News. The verdict is final and Hsieh cannot appeal it. Hsieh filed a libel suit against publisher Wang Shaw-lan (王效蘭), president Wang Wen-shan (王文杉), editor-in-chief Huang Su-chuan (黃素娟) and chief staff writer Huang Nien (黃年) over two editorials that ran early last year which implied that he had been involved in the 2002 Kaohsiung City Council speakership election bribery case and had tried to take advantage of his position to manipulate the judicial system. The defendants had argued that the editorials were trying to remind prosecutors to be more careful in investigating the bribery case instead of deliberately attacking Hsieh.
■ Heritage
Shihlin residence to open
Taipei City Government's Bureau of Cultural Affairs yesterday announced that it will take over management of the official Shihlin residence of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and his wife, Soong Mayling (宋美齡), from the Presidential Office and open the house to the public after renovation and maintenance. The structure has been designated as having historic value, and the grounds of which it is part are already open to the public and proving to be a popular draw. Bureau Director Liao Hsien-hao (廖咸浩) yesterday said the bureau had taken over maintenance and management of the structure while asking the Presidential Office to provide the budget for its renovation and to complete an inventory of the Chiangs' personal belongings.
■ Politics
Man gives up US passport
A long-term supporter of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that he will forfeit his US citizenship to return to Taiwan to serve as a senior adviser to President Chen. Wu Li-pei (吳澧培), founder of the Formosa Foundation and head of an overseas group that is friendly to Chen, said that he would return to Taiwan in mid-July at the latest. Wu said that he first thought about forfeiting his US citizenship and returning to Taiwan when he founded an overseas group supportive of the president in Los Angles in 2000. But with increasing members of the group and the founding of the Formosa Foundation in 2002, Wu said he stayed in the US because he wanted to help the deepening of democracy in Taiwan.
■ Society
Aboriginal homes torn down
About 500 police officers and construction workers yesterday morning demolished illegally-built houses in the "State of Kaosha" (高砂國), an Aboriginal community located in Kaohsiung County's Taliao township, local media reported yesterday. Reports said Kaohsiung resident Su Jung-tsung (蘇榮宗) rented six hectares of land for agricultural purposes from the Taiwan Sugar Corporation in April last year and rented it to almost 200 Aboriginal families at NT$3,000 per household. The illegally-built community later called itself the State of Kaosha, based on an old Japanese name for Taiwan, and refused to relocate. The Kaohsiung County Government decided to act yesterday, and although the demolition team was confronted by members of the community, the structures were pulled down by noon.
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,