Worried that people might find the topics of the upcoming cross-strait talks — most notably the economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) — controversial and surprising, several civic groups yesterday urged the government to allow more transparency and legislative review before cross-strait agreements are implemented.
“Taiwan is a democracy, so the government is elected by the people,” Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) executive director Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) told a news conference at the legislature yesterday.
“Hence it’s important to allow the public, or at least representatives of the people, to participate in the policy-making process and to ratify the agreements,” Ho said.
“The government is keeping the contents of the ECFA top secret, probably because it fears public resentment,” National Alliance of Taiwan Women’s Associations chairwoman Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) said.
“However, such resentment would be much fiercer if the public were not allowed to provide input beforehand, because an agreement [unilaterally drafted by the government] may end up having many defects,” Chen said.
A CCW survey of lawmakers’ attitudes about legislative monitoring of cross-strait agreements received replies from 39 legislators — one-third of the 106 members of the Legislative Yuan — who all said that such agreements should be monitored by the legislature.
The lawmakers who replied included 10 from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), 27 from the Democratic Progressive Party and two from the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union.
Citing the relaxation of restrictions on imports of certain US beef products as an example, Ho said that a lack of transparency in negotiating and signing international agreements was not only potentially harmful to the public interest, but could also harm the relationship between Taiwanese and people in other countries.
Despite a legislative resolution adopted in 2006 that requires the government to consult the legislature before lifting the ban on importing beef organs and bone-in beef from the US, the government signed an agreement lifting the ban without telling anyone in advance, Ho said.
The move angered lawmakers and the public alike, with some protesters making anti-US remarks, Ho said.
“I am a taxpayer, which makes me one of the bosses of this country, and government officials — who are paid with taxpayers’ money — are public servants,” Parents Society of Overseas Students secretary-general Johnny Huang (黃育旗) said. “Of course public servants should report to their bosses about what they are doing.”
“It’s regrettable that the US beef agreement was signed without applying for legislative approval, and that the government is trying to sign the ECFA when more than half of the public say they don’t know what it’s about,” Huang said.
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,