■ Politics
Wang cool on meeting Ma
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday said he is not interested in meeting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), at least not at the moment. Wang said Ma sent someone to see him on Wednesday night and asked him whether he would have time to meet. Wang said he has not yet officially responded to Ma's request and is not sure what Ma wants to talk about. "I don't think I'd have time to do it now because things are pretty hectic here at the legislature," Wang said. Wang also dismissed media reports claiming that he had complained to former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) about Ma on Wednesday night during a private dinner party. Wang reportedly told Lien that he has always been well respected by previous KMT chairmen, but he now feels Ma is not offering him proper respect. When asked about his alleged remark, Wang yesterday said Lien indeed has shown him great respect, while Ma had done "ok" in this regard. Ma, when asked by reporters for comments, said yesterday that he has always respected Wang.
■ Crime
Hostages may be released
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said that three Taiwanese fishing vessels and their crews taken hostage by rebels in Somalia a year ago were close to being released, pending a final agreement with the abductors. Director of the ministry's African Affairs Department Lee Chen-hsiung (李辰雄) yesterday said that negotiations with the Somalian rebels were more complicated than expected, but so far the crew members were being treated well. Lee said the negotiations only required a final agreement with the rebels on how much ransom should be paid. The MOFA official said the case had received a lot of international attention, including help from the president of Malawi, who wrote a letter to the Somalian government asking for help on the case, and support from a number of international organizations which had deterred the kidnappers from hurting the abductees.
■ Broadcasting
Union, KMT fail to agree
The dispute between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Central Motion Picture Corp (CMPC) union continued yesterday as the party said the union's demand for a preferential pension package was "unreasonable." CMPC's employees have been protesting since the KMT sold the company and two other media outlets to the China Times Group. The union presented a plea to the party on Wednesday demanding a better pension package. The party yesterday responded to the union's plea in a written statement, and said that its demands are unreasonable.
■ Crime
US appreciates crackdown
The US appreciates Taiwan's efforts in cracking down on counterfeit US banknotes, a US Department of Justice official said yesterday. Suzanne Hayden, an attorney from the US Department of Justice, made the remarks when she and Paul Quick, an agent of the US Secret Service, called on Minister of Justice Morley Shih (施茂林). Hayden said that Quick was stationed in Taiwan by the US to help handle related cases, and that bilateral relations between Taiwan and the US have been based on friendship and cooperation. The focus on cracking down on counterfeit US banknotes is to prevent forged US bills from entering the systems of banking institutions, to avoid triggering international problems.
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,