No timetable has been set for a visit to China by People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) and it is "meaningless" for Soong to do so now at a time when Taiwan lacks a national consensus on the issue, PFP spokesman Hsieh Kung-ping (謝公秉) said yesterday.
Hsieh claimed that Soong will pay a visit to China but pointed out that "there is not a fixed timetable" on the issue.
Soong will head for China only when a national consensus is forged on the question of whether political parties should visit China now that Beijing has enacted its "Anti-Secession" Law targeting Taiwan.
WAITING ON THE DPP
According to Hsieh, Soong hopes to visit China to help break the ice between the two sides. But it would be pointless for Soong to go if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) "has not made up its mind whether it is willing to reconcile" with China.
Since Soong met President Chen Shui-bian (
It would be meaningful for Soong to visit China only if a consensus is reached in Taiwan and if all the parties concerned can manage to work out feasible measures, he said, reiterating that the ruling and opposition camps should respect each other and give national interests precedence when seeking rational and workable resolutions to cross-strait disputes.
RESPECTING THE GOVERNMENT
The opposition should respect the government's authority and mandate, while the government should respect the opposition camp's efforts, he said, adding that it is very important for both sides to exchange views.
Turning to a government plan to take legal action to deal with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Chiang Pin-kun (
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