■ Health
MOFA urges UN action
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged the UN to comply with common practice in permitting the deposit of Taiwan's Instrument of Accession to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The FCTC, created in 2003, is aimed at promoting awareness about the detrimental effects of tobacco on people's health, requires warning labels on tobacco products, prohibits promotional advertisements for tobacco products and seeks to control smuggling of tobacco and reduce supplies of tobacco. Taiwan has been working hard to implement the spirit and contents of the convention, MOFA said, adding that the Legislative Yuan approved the FCTC in January and President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) then issued the Instrument of Accession.
■ Diplomacy
No Japan stop for president
Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山) yesterday denied reports that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will make a transit stop in Japan during his upcoming Central American trip. The president is scheduled to travel to Nicaragua later this month to attend a summit meeting with the leaders of diplomatic allies in Central America and several Caribbean countries. The minister said that "there is no plan to make a stopover trip in Japan." He also said that the ministry had not heard anything about a Central American summit being postponed. He added that with the UN General Assembly scheduled to convene this Tuesday, and national leaders set to converge in New York for the occasion, it had been difficult to adjust to the itineraries of the Central American leaders who will attend the world body's gathering.
■ Health
MRT to hold drill
Some sections of Taipei City's MRT system will be temporarily suspended this afternoon in order to accommodate the Wanan No. 28 air raid drill scheduled to take place today between 2pm and 2:30pm, said the Taipei Rapid Transit Co. During the half-hour drill, MRT trains running on the Muzha Line, the Xiaobitan Line and the Damshui Line north of Yuanshan Station will have their services suspended. Underground trains will not be affected during the drill and will operate as normal, the Taipei Rapid Transit Co said. All MRT passengers should follow the MRT station staff's instructions upon arrival at stations during the duration of the drill, they added.
■ Health
Syria refuses visas
The Arab Republic of Syria has refused to issue visas to Taiwan's official representatives to the Afro-Asian Rural Development Conference (AARDO) as a result of political pressure from the Chinese government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. Daniel Liao (廖東周), deputy director-general of MOFA's department of international organization, said that the government has taken action to protest Syria's conduct. Council of Agriculture Minister Lee Ching-lung (李金龍) has sent a letter to the organization's secretary asking Syria not to violate the organization's regulations. The Republic of China (Taiwan) has been a member of AARDO since 1968 and has been actively engaged in conducting related seminars during these years, Liao 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
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,