President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday expressed her gratitude for the support that US President Donald Trump’s administration has given to Taiwan’s democracy.
Tsai made the remarks while meeting a delegation from the Washington-based Hudson Institute at the Presidential Office, saying that she hopes they will witness firsthand the resilience and strength of Taiwan’s democratic society in the face of challenges.
The president personally welcomed back Hudson Institute senior fellow William Schneider, an economist and defense analyst who last visited Taiwan more than 10 years ago.
Tsai said that US Vice President Mike Pence earlier this month delivered a speech at the institute recognizing Taiwan’s democratic achievements, which was followed by the Trump administration’s announcement of a second arms sale to Taiwan since it took office, in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act.
Two US warships on Monday evening sailed through the Taiwan Strait, the second such passage since July, which some analysts interpreted as a signal that Washington will stand with Taipei in the event of a cross-strait crisis.
“We will continue to stand alongside like-minded nations to promote a free and open future,” Tsai said.
Tsai said disinformation is being used to undermine people’s confidence in governments and democratic values in the Indo-Pacific region and other parts of the world.
“In the face of the challenge posed by disinformation, all democratic societies must work together and encourage the public and media to join the fight to defend the values of democracy and freedom,” Tsai said.
As part of a joint effort by Taiwan and the US to combat the problem, Tsai said the two nations last week held a workshop in Taipei underlining the importance of combating disinformation by improving media literacy under the Global Cooperation and Training Framework.
The president said she is pleased to see the two sides bolstering cooperation to face non-traditional security threats, expressing the hope that more like-minded countries could join in information sharing and discussions.
Amid growing threats to democratic institutions, Taiwan has sought to increase its defense capabilities and demonstrate its determination to protect itself, Tsai said.
“Taiwanese will never succumb to pressure,” she added.
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
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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