■ Politics
Chiu leaves the PFP
People First Party (PFP) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) yesterday announced he was withdrawing from his party, making him the third lawmaker to leave the party since a meeting between PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) and President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in February. PFP Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) has also left the party. Both have not yet decided whether to return to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) or join another party. Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) returned to the KMT's fold last month, hoping to represent the party in the Taipei County commissioner election. Both Chiu's and Lee's departures resulted from their criticisms of the reconciliatory approach Soong has adopted and a the lack of a response to their repeated calls to hold a debate on the party's political direction.
■ Culture
Taipei celebrates with LA
Representatives of 21 sister cities of Los Angeles, including Taipei, gathered at the gardens of the Page Museum in the southern California city on Sunday to celebrate the Los Angeles Sister City Festival. The one-day cross-cultural celebration, sponsored by Tom Labonge, a Los Angeles city councilor and president of the Sister Cities Association, and all the sister cities and their consul generals, was full of festivities, including a center stage with entertainment provided by the various cities in dance, music, theater and folk performances. Also featured were different international "villages" representing the various foreign cities at the venue, with each village showcasing their city or country's cultural, artistic and culinary specialties.
■ Politics
Wang opposes proposal
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who is also a vice chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), said yesterday that he will not endorse a proposal that KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) be appointed honorary chairman. Wang was opposing a proposal by Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), another KMT vice chairman, to revise the party's charter to allow the appointment of an honorary chairman. Wang and Ma are expected to run for the post of KMT chairman, which is to be decided upon on July 16. The registration period opens tomorrow and ends on June 8. Wang said Lien should be allowed to decide for himself whether he wanted to be an honorary chairman, and that no one could be certain Lien would not try to retain the chairmanship. The position of honorary chairman would therefore not be necessary if Lien ran for the post again and was re-elected, Wang said.
■ Cross-strait ties
SEF asks China to move ship
The government yesterday asked China to recall one of its research ships from Taiwanese waters so as not to violate the law. The Fen Dou No. 4 was spotted in the sea some 185km south of Taiwan. In a message to China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said the area where the Fen Dou No. 4 is currently operating is part of "Taiwan's exclusive economic zone." By law, any vessel exploring, making surveys or engaging in any other activities in Taiwan's exclusive zone must first obtain the government's permission, the SEF said. It called on ARATS to forward the message to China's Ministry of Land and Natural Resources, which owns the ship.
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