■ Finance
ADB to meet in Turkey
Central Bank of China Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) will head a 13-member delegation at the 38th annual meeting of the Asia Development Bank (ADB) board of governors from Wednesday to Friday in Istanbul, Turkey. Deputy Minister of Finance Chen Shu (陳樹) and Taiwan's representative to Turkey Liu Kuo-hsing (劉國興) will be part of the delegation, which is scheduled to depart for Turkey today, an official at the Central Bank of China said on Friday. The upcoming ADB meeting will focus on regional integration prospects, achieving sustained poverty reduction and accelerating financial cooperation and bond market development, according to the multilateral development financial institution.
■ Trade
COA official attends meeting
Council of Agriculture Vice Chairman Lee Jen-chyun (李健全) went to France yesterday to participate the G-10 agricultural ministers' meeting beginning today in Paris. Vice Chairman Lee said that the main purpose of the meeting is to consolidate the G-10 members' common negotiating position and political strength in agricultural talks. Taiwan and the other nine members of the group will also talk about the group's interests in the trade of agricultural products. According to council, Taiwan's participation will also demonstrate the benefits that Taiwan has gained from its WTO membership. The G-10 agricultural group -- made up of Taiwan, Bulgaria, Israel, Iceland, Japan, Mauritius, Norway, Switzerland, South Korea and Liechtenstein -- seeks to protect the agricultural interests of its members.
■ Culture
Taiwanese week to begin
Taiwanese-Americans in New York are preparing various activities to celebrate the annual Taiwanese-American Heritage Week, which will begin in the second week of this month. The activities include a photo exhibition, music seminars, Taiwanese puppet shows, magic performances, a koji ceramic works exhibition and a exhibition dedicated to T.F. Chen (陳錦芳), a renowned Taiwanese painter. In addition, Taiwanese-Americans will also hold a "Passport to Taiwan" activity that has been the main event of the Taiwanese-American week in the past four years. In 1999, the US Congress set the second week of May as a regular festival for the celebration of Taiwanese culture. Since then, Taiwanese-Americans in the US have celebrated the week.
■ Agriculture
Talks with Beijing mooted
Council of Agriculture Chairman Lee Chin-lung (李金龍) yesterday urged Beijing to open talks with Taipei on tariff-free treatment for Taiwanese agricultural products to protect the interests of Taiwanese farmers. Lee was responding to a report that China might exempt certain Taiwanese agricultural products from customs duties. Lee said the council would welcome the move, but pointed out that as customs and quarantine affairs involved government agencies, China would have to hold talks with the government to resolve the matter. Moreover, a unilateral announcement by China would provide no guarantee for Taiwanese farmers, because Beijing might make future unilateral decisions ending preferential treatment, Lee said. If both sides were not ready to start government-to-government talks at this point, the council could authorize a civic group to negotiate with Beijing on behalf of the government, he 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
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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