The American Institute in Taiwan's (AIT) new Director Stephen Young yesterday afternoon paid a courtesy call to Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (
Young said he would recommend Wang to President Chen Shui-bian (
Wang related Young's remarks to the media after meeting with him for about an hour.
Wang said he exchanged opinions with Young on cross-strait relations and ties between Taiwan and the US.
Later, Young, speaking with reporters in Mandarin and Holko (commonly known as Taiwanese), said he was happy to see his old friend and Kaohsiung native and stressed that there were "no secrets" at the meeting.
"What we talked about was Taiwan and the US regaining their friendship," Young said.
Asked whether the US had upgraded its official reception of Chinese Nationalist Party and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
"We have friendly contacts with all our Taiwanese friends, so we welcome Chairman Ma or Mayor Ma to visit the US," Young said. "We do not play any tricks."
"If Mr Wang comes to the US, we would welcome him likewise," Young added.
During the meeting, describing relations between Taiwan and China as a "sun emerging" after bad weather, Young said the US might sign a free trade agreement with Taiwan in May.
According to Wang, Young also said the US hoped Taiwan and China could resume dialogue as soon as possible.
"Young said the US is willing to see me play the key role of facilitating cross-strait talks and he would recommend me to President Chen if there was a chance to bring up this issue," Wang said.
Wang said that they did not talk about the NUC during the meeting.
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,