■DIPLOMACY
Ally thanks Taiwan for help
The friendship between Taiwan and St Vincent and the Grenadines has grown stronger after many years of cooperation between the two countries, St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said on Wednesday. Addressing the inauguration of a national library in the Caribbean country constructed with funds from Taiwan, Gonsalves said the biggest public library in the Caribbean was the best testimony to the friendship between the two countries. Gonsalves also expressed his thanks to Taiwan for its assistance with several other infrastructure projects, including the country’s Youth Empowerment Service (YES) program, which has been rated as a model program worthy of emulation by other countries in the region by the Inter-American Development Bank and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Latin American regional office.
■SOCIETY
‘Seed baby’ goes to Shanghai
Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Yong-ping (李永萍) departed yesterday for Shanghai to promote the Taipei International Garden and Horticulture Exposition that will be held in Taipei between Nov. 6, next year, and April 25, 2011. Lee took the official mascot of the Taipei flora expo, which is expected to be one of the biggest international events the city has organized. The mascot — called Yabi the Seed Baby — proved an instant crowd pleaser at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. EVA Airways provided a ticket for the mascot to have a seat in the passenger cabin on the flight to Shanghai. Yabi the Seed Baby is expected to meet Haibao — the official mascot of Shanghai World Expo 2010 — during its visit to Shanghai, she said.
■ARTS
More money from Ma
The prize money for the National Culture and Arts Foundation Awards (國家文藝獎) is likely to go up after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday proposed increasing it from NT$600,000 to NT$1 million (US$30,700) for each person. Addressing the award ceremony held at Taipei’s Zhongshan Hall yesterday afternoon, Ma said he felt embarrassed when he learned that the prize money had not changed over the past 13 years. “I’m wondering whether next time we can pump it up to NT$1 million per person,” he said. “Nobel laureates get at least NT$40 million each ... It is not just money. It is a token of respect and appreciation for their hard work.” For fear that his remarks were not taken seriously, Ma said his suggestion was “an order,” drawing laughter from the audience.
■ENERGY
Premier touts green energy
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday ordered the establishment of a new energy promotion committee in a bid to transform Taiwan into a leader in alternative energy. The premier issued the order at a weekly Cabinet meeting after hearing a Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) report on an action plan for the green energy industry, Government Information Office Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said after the meeting. Wu said that Taiwan, with a solid foundation paved by its semiconductor industry, had a great advantage in developing green energies. However, the premier said there was still a great challenge for Taiwan if it wants to achieve the goal set for the country’s new energy industry of reaching more than NT$1 trillion (US$31.3 billion) in production value for green energy over the next six years. It currently stands at about NT$169 billion.
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,