The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday announced that it has set up a Foreign Press Liaison for the Fishing Boat Incident following widespread dissatisfaction with the government’s ability to explain to the international community the circumstances of the fatal shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman by Philippine Coast Guard personnel.
The press liaison became operational yesterday, and will serve as a central body for the government to release responses to the latest developments regarding the incident to international media outlets, while providing foreign media agencies access to information for reporting on the case, the ministry said.
As investigations into the circumstances leading to the shooting are still being carried out, Taiwan was reported as being unable to justify enacting a slew of sanctions against Manila and staging a military drill in disputed waters after Philippine President Benigno Aquino III apologized for the incident through his personal envoy.
The press liaison may hold daily international press conferences, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, officials from the ministry and the Council of Labor Affairs yesterday visited Filipino migrant workers at two Catholic churches in Taipei to assure them that the government will protect their rights and interests in Taiwan, the ministry 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
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