Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said yesterday that pushing Taiwan's participation in the UN has always been one of his concerns and not just an election campaign ploy.
He also said that Taiwan should cherish the US as a "strategic partner" and continue communicating with it about the DPP's UN referendum bid because Taiwan and the US share strategic interests.
While paying a visit yesterday to Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), Hsieh reminded reporters that he had led a delegation to the UN more than a decade ago to seek membership in the world body.
"Some UN representatives told me then that Taiwan should form a unitary voice first," he said, adding that this was why the DPP had proposed holding a referendum.
Participating in the UN under the name "Taiwan" does not necessarily require changes to the Constitution or the national title, he said.
Meanwhile, DPP Chairman Yu Shyi-kun attended a public hearing of the referendum proposal at the Cabinet's Referendum Review Committee yesterday.
On his way to the meeting, Yu told reporters that the US' disapproval of the bid was groundless because many UN members, such as Switzerland and the Republic of Macedonia, joined the organization under names that were not their national titles.
"I initiated the referendum proposal to allow Taiwanese to express their will and hope that this could increase Taiwan's participation in international affairs," Yu said.
"A referendum is a basic human right and is an internal affair. It is also a symbol of democracy. The US itself has held many referendums in the past," Yu said, adding that he could not understand why the US opposed Taiwan's referendum proposal.
"The only explanation is the US fears pressure from China. But I think the US, which wants to maintain a balance of power, should uphold justice," he said.
Singapore criticized Taiwan's plan to hold a referendum on UN membership yesterday, calling it "provocative and irresponsible."
"Singapore opposes any unilateral move to alter the status of Taiwan," the foreign ministry said in a statement. "The proposal to put Taiwan's UN membership bid under the title `Taiwan' to a referendum is provocative and irresponsible."
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,