Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Approached by reporters at the DPP's Central Standing Committee meeting yesterday, Hsieh declined to give details on the meeting, calling it "private."
Hsieh made the remarks in response to a story published in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister paper) yesterday, which quoted an anonymous source as saying that Hsieh had told Su he would "keep a certain promise" between them, adding that he was a man of his word.
The story quoted the source as saying that during a visit to Su on May 10 following Hsieh's nomination as the DPP's presidential contender, Hsieh had restated his promise that the top-two contenders in the party primary should cooperate.
The source was also quoted as saying that Hsieh told Su they were bound by that promise and that no such promise existed between him and former acting Kaohsiung mayor Yeh Chu-lan (
Hsieh was trying to use a public opinion survey to create a "turning point" in the nomination matter because Hsieh and Yeh were bound by "ties of friendship" resulting from her support for Hsieh in the primary, the source was quoted as saying.
Hsieh, the source said, hoped to further discuss the running mate issue with Su, who has said he has no intention of competing with Yeh for the position but would help Hsieh in his run for the presidency.
Approached for comments, DPP Legislator Hsu Kuo-yung (
DPP Legislator Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡), who is close to Su, said the latter had gone abroad yesterday morning on a personal trip, but as far as he knew, Su's decision to campaign for Hsieh remained unchanged.
Replying to media inquiries, Yeh said yesterday she would continue to campaign for Hsieh even if he were to pick another running mate.
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