Premier Su Tseng-chang (
"Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] and People First Party lawmakers don't get down to business and instead go to China with [former KMT chairman] Lien Chan (
Su said that broadcast TV showed a group of pan-blue members lining up to shake hands with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
The pan-blue members were "deferential" to Hu and Jia Qinglin (
When Hu and Jia said that they will not allow the existence of "Taiwan's independence," none of the pan-blues spoke up for Taiwan's right to self-determination, while some even applauded, Su added.
It would be "the most terrible thing" if the KMT were to win next year's presidential election and act as it said at the forum, Su said.
The forum, which concluded yesterday, announced that China would allow Taiwanese to invest in wholly owned shipping and container transport firms, to operate ports and highways, as well as allowing Taiwanese universities to recruit students from China.
Shortly after a declaration was announced in the KMT-CCP forum, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council immediately issued a news release, saying that any topic involving the authority of Taiwan's government should be negotiated by Taiwan's elected officials.
"We urge China to eliminate the political framework and the premise that it imposes on Taiwan," the statement said. "Re-initiating formal, official negotiations is the only right choice to resolve current cross-strait issues."
Additional reporting by Jewel Huang
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,