■POLITICS
Chen-kicker attacked
Su An-sheng (蘇安生), who assaulted former representative to Japan Koh Se-kai (許世楷) last month and kicked former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) last week was attacked by two unidentified men in their forties or fifties with iron bars and wooden poles yesterday. According to Su’s account to police, the incident took place 9:40am on Taipei City’s Renai Road as he was riding his bicycle. Su said the attackers sped off in a small car. After receiving a call from a witness who said there was a fight on the street, the Taipei Fire Department arrived at the scene and took Su to Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital, where he was treated for an open fracture of the left elbow and dislocation of the left wrist. After kicking Chen, Su went on TV and demonstrated what he did to Chen, challenging pan-green supporters “to come and fight.”.
■DIPLOMACY
Hu leaves for Marshalls
Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) departed for the Marshall Islands yesterday to preside over a ceremony in which Taiwan would donate 200 bicycles and five computers for use by the islands’ students. In a statement issued on Friday, Hu said he would also visit Kwajalein Atoll, one of the Marshall Islands’ largest cities. He said he has special feelings for the Marshall Islands because diplomatic ties were established in 1998 when he served as the foreign minister. Kwajalein Atoll is home to the Marshall Islands’ former president Imata Kabua, Senator Michael Kabua and Foreign Minister Tony deBrum, the statement said. DeBrum visited Taiwan last year along with a delegation of officials and congressmen in his capacity as a senator. During a meeting with Hu, deBrum asked Taiwan to donate bicycles and computers to help the islands’ students. Hu and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to make the donation this year, prompting deBrum to invite him to preside over the donation ceremony.
■CRIME
Costa Rican ministry raided
Costa Rican justice officials raided the offices of the interior minister on Friday, seizing documents related to million-dollar donations from Taiwan that were allegedly diverted. Earlier this week opposition deputy Alberto Salom accused Minister of the Interior Fernando Zumbado of diverting part of US$2.5 million donated by Taiwan in 2006 for building homes for the poor in western San Jose. The documents were seized from Zumbado’s offices one day after he testified to a parliamentary commission on the case. Zumbado, who was suspended while the case was being probed, said decisions on handling the funds were taken by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration, which oversees the use of the money.
■CRIME
Koh sues KMT lawmakers
Former representative to Japan Koh Se-kai (許世楷) said on Friday he planned to file a slander lawsuit against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) and Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇). Lu and Wu last month criticized the way Koh handled the collision between a Taiwanese fishing boat and a Japanese Coast Guard patrol vessel near the disputed Diaoyutai (釣魚台) islands, calling him a “traitor” and a “liar.” Koh immediately tendered his resignation after the comments and rejected a request by Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) to report to the Legislative Yuan, saying that “a soldier can be killed on field, but cannot be humiliated.” Both Wu and Lu reacted to Koh’s plan by saying they “welcome the lawsuit.”
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,