DIPLOMACY
Lee Teng-hui to visit Japan
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) is to visit Ishigaki Island, Japan, between July 30 and Aug. 3, and he is expected to deliver a speech on Taiwan-Ishigaki ties, Lee’s office director Wang Yan-chun (王燕軍) said. The trip is being made at the invitation of a group of young Japanese mayors, of which Ishigaki City Mayor Yoshitaka Nakayama is a key member, Wang said. Lee is expected to talk about issues such as the historical connection between Ishigaki and Taiwan, and his vision for Taiwan-Japan exchanges in his speech, Wang said. It is to be Lee’s first visit to Ishigaki, he added. Asked if the 92-year-old Lee, who suffered from a mild stroke late last year, can cope with the flight, Wang said the flight takes only 50 minutes and that there should not be any problems.
SOUTH CHINA SEA
Research center planned
Taiwan is planning to set up an international center to conduct ocean and weather research in the South China Sea, as part of its efforts to boost cooperation with ASEAN, Minister of Science and Technology Yang Hung-duen (楊弘敦) said. Yang said his ministry would push for the establishment of a South China Sea International Research Center in line with the government’s new southbound” policy. The plan includes establishing an observation station on Taiwan-held Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島), the largest naturally formed landmass in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), and sharing the ocean and weather research data with ASEAN nations, Yang said. The ministry is also to devise a four-year plan for Taiwan’s scientific and technology development, based on the ideals of a smart, healthy and low-carbon society, Yang 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
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,
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