DIPLOMACY
Ma to visit allies
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will visit Panama and El Salvador later this month on what will be his 10th overseas trip since becoming president, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Ma is scheduled to depart on June 29 and head first to Panama, where he will attend the inauguration of president-elect Juan Carlos Varela on July 1, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Simon Ko (柯森耀) said. Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) visited El Salvador earlier this month to attend the inauguration of Salvadorean President Sanchez Ceren. Ma’s plane will transit in Hawaii on the way to Central America and stop over in San Francisco on the way back, Ko said. Ma is due to return home on July 5.
TRANSPORTATION
Deal inked with Delaware
Taiwan signed an agreement with the US state of Delaware on Wednesday to recognize each other’s drivers’ licenses. The pact with Delaware is the seventh of its kind with a US state after similar ones with Maryland, Idaho, Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The latest agreement was signed by Representative to the US Shen Lyu-shun (沈呂巡) and Delaware Governor Jack Markell. Effective immediately, Taiwanese who hold legal resident status in Delaware and a valid Taiwanese driver’s license can obtain a Delaware driver’s license without taking a test. Holders of a Delaware driver’s license can enjoy the same treatment in this country.
TRAVEL
E-passports promoted
More than 70 percent of Republic of China passport holders are using e-passports equipped with features that make forgery difficult, a foreign ministry official said yesterday. Among the 11.46 million valid passports in circulation, about 71 percent of them are e-passports, Bureau of Consular Affairs Deputy Director-General Michael Yiin (尹新垣) told a regular news briefing in Taipei. The bureau has recently made a promotional video aimed at encouraging Taiwanese to apply for the e-passports, which are also called biometric passports. An e-passport looks like a traditional one, but contains an electronic chip that is encoded with the holder’s personal information. Taiwan has been issuing e-passports since Dec. 29, 2008. The video, which was released in Mandarin, Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) and Hakka, provides information on how to keep the passport safe and how to use the online appointment system for passport applications, Yiin said. The bureau issued 1.85 million passports last year and said this year’s number is expected to surpass that figure, he said. The bureau issued 830,000 passports from January to last month, Yiin said.
MEDIA
Clinton memoir published
The Chinese-language version of former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton’s memoir Hard Choices was released in Taiwan on Wednesday, the same day the original version was launched in the US. Hard Choices is Clinton’s account of the choices and challenges she faced during her term as secretary of state from 2009 to last year. “I wrote this book to honor the exceptional diplomats and development experts whom I had the honor of leading as America’s sixty-seventh secretary of state,” Clinton wrote in the book. “I wrote it for anyone anywhere who wonders whether the US still has what it takes to lead. For me, the answer is a resounding ‘Yes.’” The Chinese-language version was published by the Chinese-language Business Weekly magazine.
POLAM KOPITIAM CASE: Of the two people still in hospital, one has undergone a liver transplant and is improving, while the other is being evaluated for a liver transplant A fourth person has died from bongkrek acid poisoning linked to the Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday, as two other people remain seriously ill in hospital. The first death was reported on March 24. The man had been 39 years old and had eaten at the restaurant on March 22. As more cases of suspected food poisoning involving people who had eaten at the restaurant were reported by hospitals on March 26, the ministry and the Taipei Department of Health launched an investigation. The Food and
A fourth person has died in a food poisoning outbreak linked to the Xinyi (信義) branch of Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in Taipei, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said on Monday. It was the second fatality in three days, after another was announced on Saturday. The 40-year-old woman experienced multiple organ failure in the early hours on Monday, and the family decided not to undergo emergency resuscitation, Wang said. She initially showed signs of improvement after seeking medical treatment for nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, but her condition worsened due to an infection, he said. Two others who
MEDICAL: The bills would also upgrade the status of the Ethical Guidelines Governing the Research of Human Embryos and Embryonic Stem Cell Research to law The Executive Yuan yesterday approved two bills to govern regenerative medicine that aim to boost development of the field. Taiwan would reach an important milestone in regenerative medicine development with passage of the regenerative medicine act and the regenerative medicine preparations ordinance, which would allow studies to proceed and treatments to be developed, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) told reporters at a news conference after a Cabinet meeting. Regenerative treatments have been used for several conditions, including cancer — by regenerating blood cells — and restoring joint function in soft tissue, Wang said. The draft legislation requires regenerative treatments
Taiwanese should be mindful when visiting China, as Beijing in July is likely to tighten the implementation of policies on national security following the introduction of two regulations, a researcher said on Saturday. China on Friday unveiled the regulations governing the law enforcement and judicial activities of national security agencies. They would help crack down on “illegal” and “criminal” activities that Beijing considers to be endangering national security, according to reports by China’s state media. The definition of what constitutes a national security threat in China is vague, Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said. The two procedural regulations are to provide Chinese