President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday dismissed claims that his wish to live in Kaohsiung was spur-of-the-moment, saying that it was a long-time dream of him and his wife.
"It has always been our dream to move to Kaohsiung," Chen said. "It is not an idea we came up with for the elections. We sincerely hope we can move there."
Chen said he and his wife have been looking forward to living there, taking into account the many developments made over the years.
He also thanked the residents of Kaohsiung for giving them an opportunity to become their neighbor.
Chen made the remarks in response to an e-mail he received in the latest issue of his weekly e-newsletter.
Chen had said before last Saturday's elections that he was very fond of Kaohsiung City and would like to live there if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the Kaohsiung election.
DPP candidate Chen Chu (陳菊) won the poll by a margin of just 0.14 percent over Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) opponent Huang Chun-ying (
President Chen yesterday said Chen Chu's victory showed that voters appreciated good candidates and the performance of the previous Kaohsiung mayor, Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).
"Elections are over and it is time to get back to business," he 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,