Taiwan will continue to push for participation in international organizations to help contribute to societies around the world, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday as she met with US Representative Ruben Gallego.
At a meeting at the Presidential Office Building in Taipei, Tsai thanked Gallego, a member of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, for his long-term support for Taiwan and for voicing his support in the US Congress for Taiwan to join the WHO, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the International Police Organization.
The passage of the US Taiwan Travel Act, which promotes meetings and visits between top US and Taiwanese officials, was testament to the continuing improvement in relations between the two nations, she said.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
She also thanked the US government for its commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and the Six Assurances, which are the cornerstones of bilateral relations.
The approval of marketing licenses for US firms to sell Taiwan the technologies it needs to build its own submarines — in addition to the US$1.42 billion arms sales package approved in June last year — would not only help Taiwan defend itself, but would also help maintain peace and prosperity across the Taiwan Strait, Tsai said.
In a separate meeting with Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Rodrigue at her office, Tsai thanked him for his nation’s staunch support for Taiwan.
Taiwan and Haiti have maintained friendly relations for 60 years, during which time they have collaborated on a variety of programs involving infrastructure, agriculture, public health and vocational training, Tsai 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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