■ Politics
Lee rebuffs DPP overtures
Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (李傑) yesterday dismissed a suggestion by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators that he should join the DPP. He also said that he will not seek to have his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) membership reinstated. Lee, whose membership was revoked last week by the KMT, made the remarks while fielding questions at a legislative committee. Lee earlier said that "it will be best for me to become free from political affiliation in my task to make the military politically neutral."
■ Banking
FSC to name and shame
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) will go ahead with its plan to publish the names of major loan defaulters this week, even though the Banking Act (銀行法) makes such a move illegal, FSC Chairman Hu Sheng-cheng (胡勝正) said yesterday. In a response to lawmakers' questions at the Legislative Yuan, Hu said about 1,500 borrowers who have defaulted on repayment of bank loans of more than NT$100 million (US$3.02 million) will be publicly named to serve the public interest. The criteria will include borrowers who have run up bad loans at different banks with a combined sum of more than NT$100 million even if each individual loan does not exceed that amount. Hu said the commission has ordered local banks to make the disclosure on Thursday in an administrative decree, which could be challenged by borrowers as it is against the law that obliges banks to protect the privacy of their borrowers.
■ Crime
Police hunt student's rapists
The nation's top police officer told a legislative Yuan committee yesterday that police would make an all-out effort to catch two men who raped a medical school coed early on Sunday after abducting her near a Taipei mass rapid transit (MRT) station. Answering questions from members of the legislature's Home and Nations Committee, National Police Agency Director-General Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said a task force formed to investigate the case had already obtained samples of the rapists' DNA and would do everything possible to bring them to justice. The victim was walking from Shilin Night Market toward a motorbike parking lot opposite the No. 2 exit of the MRT's Chientan Station shortly after midnight on Sunday when a man forced her into a car. Another man then drove the car to the Tachia Riverside Park. Both men then raped her in the park and drove off, leaving the young woman naked. A couple driving through the park discovered the victim and helped her, according to the report.
■ Environment
Chen celebrates Arbor Day
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) planted a tree sapling on the campus of Taipei National University of the Arts yesterday to celebrate Arbor Day. He urged the public to support the "cherish the forests" drive that has been launched by the Council of Agriculture to observe "Arbor Month." He also exhorted the public to become "tree huggers" so that Taiwan can be developed into a "green silicon island" where the environment is preserved as high-technology industry is fostered. Citing the messages put forward in the motion pictures Day After Tomorrow and An Inconvenient Truth, Chen urged the public to make efforts before it's too late to help form the basis for ecologically sustainable development in 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
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,