■ POLITICS
Shih claim false: PO
The Presidential Office yesterday dismissed former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Shih Ming-teh’s (施明德) claim that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had agreed to grant an overnight rally after Shih promised not to run in the presidential election last year. Shih launched a protest movement in August 2006 aimed at forcing then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to resign. Shih said on Friday that Ma, who was Taipei mayor in 2006, had met him to discuss the movement and agreed to extend the hours of the movement overnight after Shih declared he would not run in the presidential election. Presidential Office spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) confirmed yesterday that Shih and Ma met to discuss the legitimacy of the anti-Chen movement. However, the president did not ask about Shih’s political aspirations and did not ask anything in exchange for the extension to the rally, Wang said.
■ ENERGY
Saving program pays off
An incentive program introduced by the state-owned Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) to encourage energy conservation has helped decrease household electricity consumption by 2.84 billion kilowatt-hours over the past eight months, company officials said yesterday. The reduction means that carbon dioxide emissions were down by 1.79 million tonnes and that the discount to consumers on electricity bills amounted to NT$14.2 billion (US$407.9) between July and last month, the officials said. The program, which came into effect in July, gives consumers a discount of up to 20 percent if they use the same amount or less electricity than the previous year.
■ CHARITY
Association needs money
A charitable organization in Nantou County that has distributed meals to senior citizens since a devastating earthquake hit in 1999 is now desperately in need of donations to stay afloat. The Long-Yan-Lin Welfare Association has distributed more than 1 million free boxed meals to the elderly since the devastating magnitude 7.3 earthquake rattled Taiwan on Sept. 21, 1999, said Chen Teh-an (陳德安), president of the Taichung Sungchu Rotary Club. Operations could soon be suspended, however, because of financial difficulties, Chen said. Chen’s Rotary Club chapter donated NT$100,000 to the association on Friday, hoping this would lead to more donations from around the country — particularly the business community — to enable the association to continue helping people. Chen said the association was considering launching for-profit businesses to raise money for meals, which cost more than NT$5 million annually.
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