■ Diplomacy
US losing patience: official
A high-ranking official speaking on condition of anonymity yesterday said that Washington has warned Taiwan to pass the arms procurement package within six months, or else the US may lose interest in Taiwan's affairs. The official said that the US' acting National Security Council director for Asia Dennis Wilder and the US State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs revealed this position to Taiwan during Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-Pyng's (王金平) recent visit to the US. The US officials told Wang that people who have always taken Taiwan's side in cross-strait disputes are losing sympathy and are starting to doubt Taiwan's determination to defend itself.
■ Culture
Ma lauds traditional script
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has urged the UN to declare traditional Chinese characters a world cultural heritage, fearing they are fading into oblivion. At a meeting with Taiwanese in Geneva, Ma said the adoption by China of simplified characters has rendered them less and less recognizable in the Chinese-speaking world. Ma said he was barred from applying to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to preserve the traditional characters because Taiwan is not a UN member.
■ Diplomacy
`Hongbao' faux pas denied
Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (黃志芳) yesterday dismissed claims in the local media that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) insulted foreign dignitaries by giving red envelopes to foreign ambassadors and representatives on Thursday. Huang said the foreign dignitaries all responded very positively to the president's gesture. During a Lunar New Year gala on Thursday night, Chen offered each of the ambassadors and representatives a specially designed red envelope containing a NT$10 coin. Local media claimed yesterday that since older people give traditionally give red envelopes to young people, the action of giving red envelopes to foreign dignitaries acquires a condescending meaning.
■ Security
Airport security fails again
Premier Su Tseng-chang yesterday (蘇貞昌) ordered the creation of an inter-ministerial coordination mechanism to beef up the government's management of CKS International Airport, which recently saw a passenger slip through unstopped during customs inspection. Su instructed Minister without Portfolio Lin Si-yao (林錫耀) to get all the relevant authorities together to upgrade security and efficiency at the airport. Meanwhile, another passenger slipped through customs yesterday afternoon. Canadian Robert George flew to Taipei from Hong Kong in possession of an overdue passport and decided to make a run for the airport exit, according to a CNA report. He was caught as he tried to hail a taxi and deported last night.
■ Culture
Gifts overpackaged: EPA
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday released the results of a survey showing that 70 percent of the Valentine's Day gifts sold locally come with excessive packaging. A total of 450 packaged gifts from five department stores were sampled for the survey, EPA officials said. Of 250 processed food products surveyed, less than 20 percent passed the inspection, while about half the 200 cosmetics products surveyed passed the inspection, the officials 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
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