Criticizing the government’s increase of fuel prices ahead of schedule, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷 ) of the Democratic Progressive Party said yesterday the new administration should protect the interests of the general public rather than forcing people to bear the brunt of short and long-term price increases.
“It was such a tragic and miserable sight to see all those people lining up at gas stations for two hours just to save around NT$100,” Hsieh told a press conference.
“Fuel and electricity prices hikes — people’s misery index jumps a trillion times,” he said.
The press conference was held by the shadow Cabinet, which was launched by Hsieh to monitor the new government, after he lost to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in the March 22 election.
Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) announced two days ago that the price of unleaded gasoline would be raised by NT$3.90 per liter from midnight on Tuesday and the price of diesel would be raised by NT$4.40 per liter. The fuel price increase came earlier than the previously scheduled date of June 2.
The announcement came in the first week after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) led government took over from the DPP administration, which had frozen domestic fuel prices since December despite skyrocketing global oil prices, for fear of fueling inflationary pressures.
Describing the price hike as a “sneaky decision,” Hsieh said: “If Ma’s team knew before the election that oil prices had to be adjusted, it should not have been quiet on that and should not now blame everything on the former government.”
He said that it was Ma, on March 12, who asked the DPP administration to play the role of a “caretaker government” and to leave the price hike issue to the new government.
“My belief is that the government must take care of those who do not have the power to fight,” the former premier said. “It seems unfair to those who voted for President Ma that he appears to be taking a back seat and leaving the matter for his Cabinet to deal with.”
He contended that the government should give priority to solving the problems that people are facing in trying to make a living, before focusing on Taiwan’s economic issues.
DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said the government’s decision-making process was “obscure.”
She said everyone, from the president to Cabinet members, had tried to manipulate public opinion by constantly saying that fuel prices would have to be raised and that the increase would not be small.
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,