■ DIPLOMACY
Envoy to US approved
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) confirmed yesterday that the US had approved the appointment of Jason Yuan (袁健生) as the nation’s envoy to the US. Yuan is expected to begin his job next month. “The ROC [Republic of China] representative office in Washington received formal notice of the US’ approval of the appointment on Friday afternoon,” said Harry Tseng (曾厚仁), director-general of MOFA’s Department of North American Affairs, at a press briefing. “Yuan is well-connected in the US as he has been working there for a long time. His excellent experience and educational background make him very suitable for the post,” Tseng said.
■ DEFENSE
Ma to attend Han Kuang
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will be in a command center to observe the annual Han Kuang series of military exercises, the Ministry of National Defense said on Monday. It did not confirm when Ma would participate in the simulation. The computerized warfare simulation began on Sunday and will end on Friday, while live-fire drills will be held from Sept. 22 until Sept. 26. Ministry spokeswoman Lisa Chi (池玉蘭) said it would be inappropriate for the ministry to disclose when the president would be present at the Hengshan Command Center for the exercises. Sources at the ministry said this year’s war games would break with past practice of holding air, sea and land defense drills, and would instead spend one day on sea warfare and four on land warfare, with a ground war in the northern parts of the country and a diversionary battle in central and southern Taiwan.
■ POLITICS
Ma accepts apology
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said yesterday that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) respected National Chengchi University’s decision not to renew former Ministry of Education deputy-general Chuang Kuo-rong’s (莊國榮) contract, adding however that Ma did not want that decision to prevent Chuang from finding employment elsewhere. Wang told reporters that Chuang had apologized for the remarks he made about Ma and his family and that Ma had accepted the apology and chosen to drop the matter. Chuang is a young academic and the public should give him another chance, Wang said. Chuang sparked controversy during the presidential campaign in March when he implied that Ma’s late father had had a salacious relationship with his goddaughter.
■ CRIME
DPP opposes amendment
Democratic Progressive Party legislative caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) complained yesterday that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Ching-chi’s (吳清池) proposed amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code (刑事訴訟法) would deprive defendants of their right to appeal convictions. “Most defendants — about 95 percent of them — will not be able to appeal if Wu’s proposal is approved,” Lai said during a press conference yesterday morning. At present, the code stipulates that only cases with a potential sentence of six months or less are ineligible for appeal with the high court. Through his amendment, Wu is seeking to increase the threshold from six months to two years. Quoting studies, Lai said that of those convicted last year, 95 percent were convicted and sentenced to less than two years in prison. Under Wu’s system, such people would no longer be able to appeal their verdict, he said, adding that “Wu’s proposal will actually violate defendants’ legal rights.”
■ POLITICS
Wu should stay on: Ma
The Presidential Office said yesterday that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wanted Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) to stay at his post, despite calls by some party members to amend the party charter and allow Ma to double as party leader. Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) told reporters that Ma had made it clear that he has no intention of becoming party chief, nor did he intend to endorse Taoyuan County Commissioner Chu Li-lun (朱立倫) as Wu’s replacement. Wu had made a vast contribution to the party by leading it to victory in the legislative elections in January and the presidential poll in March, Wang said. On Monday, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported that party representatives had been pushing to amend the party charter so Ma could double as party chairman to improve the party’s coordination with the government.
■ SPORTS
Lin calls for better welfare
Ultramarathon runner Kevin Lin (林義傑) said yesterday that he would push for an amendment to the law to improve welfare for retired athletes and encourage more people to work out. Lin said athletes in Taiwan are disadvantaged compared with their Western counterparts. The 32-year-old urged the government to amend the National Sports Act (國民體育法) to give retired athletes career alternatives other than teaching or coaching. The act requires owners of companies with at least 500 employees to hire sports professionals to help design employees’ sports activities and offer counseling, he said. However, it has never been put into practice, Lin said, adding that more exercise can actually improve employee efficiency. Lin has placed in ultramarathon races in the Amazon jungle, the Gobi desert and Antarctica.
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,