The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday welcomed the announcement of US support for Taiwan’s participation in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
US President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law H.R. 1151, which commits Washington to full support of Taiwan’s membership of organizations where statehood is not a requirement.
DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) was informed during his visit to the US in June that the US House of Representatives and the Senate were expected to pass the resolution supporting Taiwan’s bid for ICAO observer status, DPP Department of International Affairs director Liu Shih-chung (劉世忠) said yesterday
Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), the party’s US representative, is visiting Washington and would thank the US administrative and legislative branches for their efforts, Liu said.
The US administration has publicly supported Taiwan’s participation in the ICAO and would continue to do so, the DPP said.
Meanwhile, the DPP legislative caucus said yesterday that it has not yet discussed its priorities for the second extra legislative session, which is scheduled to begin on July 29, because the party opposes the session.
DPP caucus Secretary-General Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said extra sessions “should not have become a normalized practice in the first place” and criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for “always trying to pass controversial legislation in the extra sessions rather than in regular ones.”
Gao said the DPP caucus would meet tomorrow to discuss strategy as the KMT caucus has placed the cross-strait service trade pact and a proposed referendum on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), on the agenda for the session.
DPP caucus convener Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) had previously said “things would get bloody” if the KMT insists on pushing through its agenda in the second extra session, adding that the DPP believes that the service trade pact should not be voted on as a package, and should be reviewed in sections.
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,