Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Ma's announcement that he would throw his hat into the ring for the party chairman election prior to an official announcement from Lien about whether he would be seeking re-election, and while Lien was himself overseas, has led commentators to suggest that Ma was mounting a coup within the party and that this was an attempt to force Lien to retire.
Speaking with the media yesterday, Ma insisted that he had no intention of forcing Lien to retire, and that the announcement of his candidacy for the post was motivated by a desire to promote unity and reform within the party.
Ma said that he could understand the criticism that had been leveled at him, but pointed out that not every election needed to create dissent.
He said that it all depended on the attitude of the people involved.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
Wang said that Lien was currently disinclined to seek another term as party chairman, but prior to an official announcement being made, the party would continue to persuade him to run, if only out of respect.
This does not prevent others from throwing their hat into the ring, Wang said.
KMT Secretary-General Lin Feng-cheng (林豐正) said that Ma's actions did not give him the impression that Ma was seeking the ouster of Lien, or that he was acting too hastily. As for the rumors about senior Lien staffers being dissatisfied with Ma, Lin said that he had heard nothing along those lines.
As for Lien's attitude, Lin said that although Lien himself was disinclined to seek re-election, many people within the party hoped that he would do so. Lin suggested people await Lien's return to Taiwan tomorrow to determine his thoughts on the issue.
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,