The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will always stand on the side of the people and will never be a party “waiting for its rivals to fail,” DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday in his New Year’s Day message.
Su lamented President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) poor performance over the past year, but had high hopes for the DPP, which he said “has always been a people’s party,” to safeguard people’s rights and alleviate their suffering in the coming year.
Su defended his party, which has been criticized by some as passive and inactive, saying that the DPP had presented corresponding initiatives to all of the government’s controversial and unpopular policies — such as its economic stimulus package, the year-end bonus for retired civil servants and nuclear power, as well as increases in fuel and electricity prices — despite them being blocked by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the legislature.
The DPP will this year advocate pension reform in the spirit of social consolidation, push for the central government to share power with local governments, and for guidelines for local governance to align cities and counties governed by the DPP, Su said.
Separately, Su played down his low approval ratings compared with those of former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in a public opinion poll conducted and released by the Chinese-language China Times yesterday, saying the results stem from a grudge the newspaper holds against him.
The survey showed that 41 percent of respondents picked Tsai as the most respected DPP leader, while Su trailed far behind with 22 percent.
Su said his vocal opposition to the controversial Next Media Group deal was believed to be the reason why the newspaper, part of a consortium that aims to buy the group, conducted such a poll.
Tsai, in response to media inqueries, said the poll “did not mean anything at this moment.”
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,