■ POLITICS
Ex-premier flown home
Former premier and minister of national defense Tang Fei (唐飛) returned to Taiwan yesterday on a charter flight after falling ill during a trip to China, sources at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport said. Tang and his family were visiting relatives when he developed pneumonia and was rushed to a hospital. His family then asked for help from the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), the semi-official organization authorized by Beijing to handle cross-strait affairs. With ARATS assistance, Tang’s family arranged a charter flight from Dalian, Liaoning Province, the sources said. An ARATS official said Tang’s condition had improved before he boarded the flight. Chinese officials said the 78-year-old fell ill while in Changchun, Jilin Province. He was sent to a hospital after developing a fever and pneumonia, and was in a stable condition.
■ POLITICS
Control Yuan censures MOJ
The Control Yuan censured the Ministry of Justice on Wednesday over a delay in processing a request to help a former Taiwanese intelligence officer receive medical leave from a Chinese prison. Wang Chang-yung (王長勇) suffered a stroke while imprisoned in China on Dec. 20 and his family wanted him to receive medical treatment in Taiwan under a cross-strait judicial cooperation agreement. The ministry received the application on Dec. 25 and issued a “very urgent” reply to the family on Jan. 18 asking for a consent letter signed by Wang to process the document. Wang died of complications from the stroke on Jan. 5. The ministry said in a press release that there was no information regarding Wang’s critical condition in the application. The Control Yuan, however, said that the family had attached a notice of critical illness issued by a hospital in Putian, Fujian Province, on Dec. 21. In the report, the Control Yuan said the ministry overlooked the importance of the matter and later tried to cover up its mistake.
■HORTICULTURE
Price of roses climbs
As Lovers’ Day (七夕, or chihsi) approaches, the wholesale price of roses has climbed to between NT$250 and NT$500 per 20-flower bunch, up to 20 percent higher than at non-holiday times, an official from the Taipei Flowers Auction Co said on Wednesday. Chihsi falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, Aug. 16 this year. Chen Ken-wang (陳根旺), a section manager at the flower company, predicted that the price for a three-flower arrangement would be between NT$300 and NT$500, and for 11-flower arrangements between NT$1,000 and NT$1,500.
■HORTICULTURE
Expo set to bring big bucks
The Taipei International Flora Expo, scheduled to open in November, will generate an estimated NT$16.8 billion (US$535 million) in economic benefits, a Taipei City official said yesterday. Of that amount, an estimated NT$2.8 billion will come directly from ticket sales, corporate sponsorship and royalties, said Chen Hsiung-wen (陳雄文), director of the Taipei City Government’s Department of Economic Development and chief executive officer of the Flora Expo. “Ticket sales alone are likely to reach an estimated NT$1.36 billion, as 7.2 million Taiwanese and 800,000 foreigners are expected to visit the exhibition,” Chen said. In addition, NT$14 billion will be generated indirectly from taxes, the flower industry and the hospitality industry, which is forecast to see benefits of NT$11.2 billion during the five-month exhibition period, Chen 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,