■ Politics
Yu says no nomination deal
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun yesterday dismissed speculation that he had reached an unofficial agreement with party Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) and Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) to nominate them for the year-end legislative election. The DPP's nomination mechanism allows the chairman to nominate up to a third of the party's candidates. The competition for party nomination is expected to be keen as the total number of legislative seats will be halved from 225 to 113, with only one representative elected for each of the 73 districts, another 34 seats allotted to parties based on the proportion of votes received and six reserved for Aboriginal legislators.
■ Politics
US wary of reform: Hsieh
The US government appeared concerned about Taiwan's plans for constitutional change and expressed hope that Taipei could keep it informed of developments, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said on Friday. Hsieh, who headed a delegation on behalf of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to attend the annual National Prayer Breakfast meeting in Washington on Thursday, made the remarks in response to media inquiries. Hsieh added that Washington was concerned whether Taiwan would honor its promises should it undertake constitutional reform. Hsieh said he told US officials that the government could not anticipate everything as Taiwan is a democracy. He said it would not be proper for the nation to deviate from the information it had given the US, as this might give the US the impression that Taipei was deceiving it, Hsieh added.
■ Society
Longest firecracker planned
The Tainan County Government has invited experts from Yenshui Township (鹽水) to make firecrackers that could challenge the world record for the longest string of firecrackers, county officials said yesterday. The southern county plans to use the record-breaking string in a firecracker display titled "Legend of the Fire Dragon" at the annual Lantern Festival, which falls on March 4, in Yenshui, a small town that traditionally celebrates the festival with a parade that involves setting off thousands of "beehive firecrackers," the officials said. The official 2007 Taiwan Lantern Festival will take place in Chiayi County from March 4 to March 11. It will feature a lantern display of a Taiwan boar to signify "peace and prosperity" in the Year of the Pig, the event organizers said.
■ Politics
Comments prompt backlash
Former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) recent remarks saying he does not advocate Taiwanese independence have generated anger among pro-independence supporters. Lee Shiao-feng (李筱峰), a professor of Taiwanese history at Shih Hsin University and a long-term pro-independence activist, yesterday said he was resigning from the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association. Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), editor-in-chief of the Contemporary Monthly, also indicated yesterday that he would resign from the board of Taiwan Advocates, a think tank funded by the former president. Lo Chi-cheng (羅致政), director of the political science department at Soochow University, said it was strange that Lee Teng-hui had recently praised Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in interviews, given that China had passed the "Anti-Secession" Law and caused countries to terminate their diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
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