■ Politics
Lee to take DPP post today
Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋), who has been named secretary-general of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), will begin today to handle the daily affairs of the party as its acting chief of staff, acting DPP Chairman Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said yesterday. Ker, who has been acting as the party's chief since President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) resigned from the DPP chairmanship in December, said Lee, who was the director-general of the Central Personnel Administration in the Cabinet of former premier Yu Shyi-kun, is supposed to take over on Feb. 15 when the new chairman, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), takes the reins of the DPP. However, Ker said, routine party affairs cannot be left unattended as former secretary-general Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) has been appointed as a non-elected lawmaker while his lieutenant, Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), has assumed his new job as secretary-general of the Executive Yuan. In order to address this problem, Ker said he has asked Lee to attend to DPP affairs as acting secretary-general before he is officially sworn in on Feb. 15.
■ Technology
ITRI patents hit record high
The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) made significant progress in terms of its research and development and operations last year and will continue to promote foresighted research this year to create new opportunities for Taiwan, ITRI president Johnsee Lee (李鍾熙) said yesterday. Lee pointed out that the ITRI obtained patents for a record 1,146 technologies last year, which represented a rise of nearly 50 percent from 2003. While the volume of value-added technology services increased 44 percent from 2003, that of industrial services also rose 20 percent, Lee said.
■ Science
Nation to join year of physics
The Physics Society of the Republic of China (PSROC) will participate in this year's "International Year of Physics," the society's chairman said yesterday. Chang Ching-juei (張慶瑞) made the remarks during the PSROC's annual three-day meeting, which opened yesterday at National Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung. Chang noted the international event is a worldwide celebration of physics that was initiated by the European Physics Society to mark the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's release of his three groundbreaking papers on photoelectric effect, Brownian motion and the theory of relativity. According to the PSROC, Taiwan will take part in a "lighting up the world with the light of physics" day slated for April 18. On that day, Chang said, the PSROC and the Optoelectronics and Systems Laboratories of the Industrial Technology Research will jointly switch on a laser beam at the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, and then move the light around the country.
■ Foreign Affairs
Taiwan to join APEC events
Taiwan will participate in the activities of APEC this year, an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday. Chieh Wen-chi (介文汲), deputy director of the International Organizations Department said at a news conference yesterday that APEC will have four regular conferences for senior officials, five conferences for ministers, an annual conference for ministers and a summit of APEC leaders. Taiwan will join in all of these, most of which will take place in South Korea, the host for the APEC activities this year, Chieh said.
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