After hailing the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) presidential ticket as "the first step toward party solidarity," President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that a tough battle has begun and the DPP cannot afford to lose next year's presidential election.
"It is not easy taking the first step toward victory, and there are many challenges lying ahead," Chen said. "We can only prevail by working harder, taking the right course and touching the hearts of the 23 million people of Taiwan."
Chen made the remarks while meeting DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Chen said he was particularly impressed by a story recently told by Nicaraguan Vice President Jaime Morales Carazo.
"He told me that it is not easy to apologize but it is more difficult to forgive," Chen said. "He also told me that it is difficult to ask, but it is more difficult to say yes."
Chen said it was easy for him to ask Yeh to be Presidential Office secretary-general, but it was not so easy for her to accept. Similarly, it was not easy for Hsieh to ask Su to be his running mate, but it was hard for Su to accept.
"But we did it. We just took the first step toward victory," he said.
Chen said the key to election victory was unity, confidence and hard work. The Hsieh-Su ticket is the first step toward party solidarity and the "golden triangle" of Hsieh, Su and Yeh will make the job easier, Chen said.
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