■ AIT
Visa application fee goes up
The US Department of State has announced that effective Dec. 1, all nonimmigrant visa applications must be accompanied by application fee receipts totaling US$100, the American Institute said in Taiwan in a press release yesterday. Starting from Nov. 1, applicants for US non-immigration visa were requested to pay US$100. Applicants who purchased application fee receipts prior to Nov. 1 for less than US$100 will be required to purchase a supplemental receipt to bring the total to US$100 for non-immigrant visa applications submitted after Nov. 30, according to the press release.
■ Diplomacy
British delegation arrives
A five-member British delegation -- headed by Tom Cox, co-chairman of the British-Taiwan Parliamentary Group -- arrived yesterday for a seven-day visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced in a press release. The delegation plans to discuss Taiwan's politics, cross-strait ties, trade and investment links with Europe and the UK, the statement said. The group will visit the legislature, the ministries of foreign affairs, rational defense and economic affairs, as well as the Mainland Affairs Council. Non-political ties between London and Taipei have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. Official British statistics show that over 70 percent of Taiwanese investors targeting Europe have chosen the UK as their base.
■ Politics
Cheng Yu-cheng quits DPP
DPP Legislator Cheng Yu-cheng (鄭余鎮) yesterday afternoon announced his withdrawal from the ruling party. The announcement was made before the DPP's Central Advisory Committee's decision whether to expel the scandal-plagued lawmaker for ignoring his legislative duties. Cheng also returned his party membership card to the DPP's headquarters in Taipei. "I temporarily lost myself and thought that [Sophie Wang (王筱嬋), Cheng's ex-mistress] was a gift from God," he said. "But the whole thing turned out to be a joke from God," he added, saying that he has already payed a considerable price for his mistake.
■ Smuggling
Cigarette seizures soar
The number of counterfeit cigarettes smuggled into Taiwan more than doubled this year after penalties were relaxed due to Taiwan joining the WTO, officials said yesterday. Most of the cigarettes are smuggled from China, where brand-name cigarettes are copied, said Hung Yi-shun, a coast guard in Keelung, northern Taiwan. The rest are from the Philippines and Hong Kong, he said. Authorities seized 38,000 boxes of smuggled cigarettes in the first 10 months of this year, compared with 14,000 boxes last year, the customs bureau in Keelung said. Since it joined the WTO in January, Taiwan has relaxed its penalties for cigarette smugglers to a maximum one-year jail term, down from the 10-year term before.
■ Human Rights
Dissident escapes charges
Tang Yuanjun (唐元雋), a Chinese dissident who swam to an islet in the Taiwan Strait in mid-October, will not be prosecuted for his illegal entry into Taiwan territory, an official said yesterday. Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) told reporters yesterday that the Kinmen Prosecutor's Office had announced the verdict last week after a full investigation. He added that the government will now respect Tang's wish to send him to any country he wishes to go.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
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