■WILDLIFEA
Pandas no problem: Wang
Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) yesterday said the Presidential Office did not think there would be any problem if China were willing to sign export papers for two pandas offered to Taiwan. The two giant pandas, named Tuan Tuan (團團) and Yuan Yuan (圓圓) (to “reunite”), were offered to Taiwan in 2005 to mark former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan’s (連戰) first visit to Beijing. At the time, the Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) administration argued that accepting the pandas as a gift would be tantamount to accepting Beijing’s claim that Taiwan belongs to China because according to the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), Beijing could only make an outright gift of pandas to any zoo within China. The Council of Agriculture decided last month that Taipei City Zoo was equipped to care for the animals. Wang, however, skirted the question when asked by the Taipei Times yesterday on what model Taiwan would adopt to import the two animals from China.
■POLITICSA
Ma appoints grand justice
The Presidential Office announced yesterday that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has decided to appoint Grand Justice Peng Feng-chih (彭鳳至) to head the Supreme Administrative Court. Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said that with Peng’s departure from the Council of Grand Justices, Ma would have to nominate five candidates to fill the council. Ma is expected to present his list of choices to the legislature for confirmation before the lawmaking body is scheduled to reconvene later this month. Peng’s husband, former chairman of National Communications Council Su Yeong-ching (蘇永欽), volunteered to serve on the selection committee after he was rumored to be interested in the position. Wang said that although Su’s experience would make him a suitable candidate, Su decided to join the recommendation committee because he did not want the public to think he was eyeing the position.
■ARTS
If Kids going to China
The If Kids Theater will perform at the “Theater of the Nations Festival” to be held in China next month, in what would be Taiwan’s first appearance in the international event held under the auspices of the UN, the troupe announced yesterday. If Kids Theater is the only children’s group slated to perform at the festival, which is expected to feature performers from 12 countries, the company said. During the festival, the troupe will stage six shows in Nanjing and Shanghai, Chao said. The festival was created by the International Theater Institute which was founded by UNESCO in 1957.
■SOCIETY
Government to fight suicides
President Ma pledged yesterday that his administration would work to reduce the suicide rate, noting that suicide is now the nation’s ninth leading cause of death. Ma said that over the past 10 years, the number of suicides had doubled, rising from 2,172 in 1997 to 4,406 in 2006, before falling to 3,933 last year. A particularly high suicide rate has been recorded among the 25 to 45 age group, he said. Ma said the government would seek to address the situation in the hope that the number of suicides would further decline. Ma made the remarks while meeting Brian Mishara, president of the International Association for Suicide Prevention and recipients of the 2008 International Caring for Life Awards.
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