President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday attended a luncheon with Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) to show his support for Hau’s re-election bid in December’s Taipei mayoral race.
Ma, in his capacity as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, brushed off speculation that the pan-blue camp wants former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — a Taipei mayoral election hopeful — to win so that he would not run against Ma in the 2012 presidential election.
“Come on! Of course I will give him [Hau] my full support … there’s no doubt that Mayor Hau will be a great candidate,” Ma said when asked to comment on the speculation.
PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FONG, TAIPEI TIMES
Su on Wednesday announced his intention to run in the election, making him Hau’s most powerful rival. Su denied speculation that he was aiming for the presidential race and would be using the mayoral election to increase his momentum.
Elections for the heads of five special municipalities will take place in Taipei City, Sinbei City (新北市, the upgraded Taipei County), Greater Taichung (a merger of Taichung City and Taichung County), Greater Tainan (a merger of Tainan City and Tainan County) and Greater Kaohsiung (a merger of Kaohsiung City and Kaohsiung County).
Sinbei City will be the largest administrative district nationwide by population and the outcome of the election there will be an important indicator of the 2012 presidential election.
Hau’s father, former premier and veteran KMT member Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村), also attended the luncheon organized by the Veterans Affairs Commission yesterday.
He urged the pan-blue camp to unite to win in December.
The KMT initiated its nomination mechanism for the elections last week and will choose its candidates via negotiations or polls in May or June.
Seeking to strengthen support from veterans, Ma yesterday said he would work to resolve recent disputes over veterans’ bonuses.
The Control Yuan has ordered the Ministry of National Defense to review the year-end bonus awarded to retired military officials, forcing it to cut the amount.
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,