■Diplomacy
President greets Danish guests
Two prominent leaders from the right-wing Danish People's Party received gratitude from President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday for their longstanding support of Taiwan in the Danish parliament. The president met with visiting Pia Kjaersgaard, leader of the Danish People's Party, as well as her deputy, Peter Skaarup, at the Presidential Office yesterday. While expressing his gratitude to the two Danish parliamentarians, Chen said it's a pity that Denmark refused to grant him a visa to facilitate his trip to Copenhagen to receive last year's Prize for Freedom. Liberal International, a London-based global federation of liberal political parties, handpicked Chen as the award recipient back last year.
■ Piracy
Police break up lotto fraud
Efforts by the police to crack down on commercial piracy, on-line crime and fraud via the issuance of illegal "instant win" lottery tickets paid off yesterday, with fakes worth more than NT$200 million (US$5.86 million) confiscated, the National Police Administration (NPA) announced yesterday. During a two-day islandwide crackdown launched Thursday by police officers and investigators under the directive of local prosecutors, 206 cases pertaining to commercial piracy, fraud and on-line crime were broken and 295 suspects were arrested, according to a NPA spokesman. Of the total, 135 people were involved in 104 piracy cases, 92 people were involved in fraud cases and 68 were involved in on-line crime, the spokesman said. The spokesman further said that the nationwide crackdown codenamed "Leiting No. 4" was to run through yesterday.
■ Tiaoyutai
China slams island claims
China has condemned as invalid a move by Japan to rent from a private owner three of the disputed Tiaoyutai islands off its southwestern coast in a bid to bolster its position in a territorial dispute with Beijing and Taiwan. The tiny, uninhabited islands are among a group of five claimed by Beijing, Tokyo and Taipei in the East China Sea. Japan calls them the Senkaku Islands. They are under nominal Japanese control but are owned privately. "Japan's unilateral action on the Tiaoyu Islands is invalid," the Foreign Ministry quoted a spokeswoman as saying in a statement on its Web site, www.fmprc.gov.cn, seen yesterday. The Tiaoyutais and adjacent islets were an integral part of China from ancient times, state media reports quoted the spokeswoman, Zhang Qiyue, as saying.
■ Elections
Ma says go to the polls
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) urged Taipei citizens yesterday to go to the polls on the eve of the ninth municipal borough chief elections. Ma called on Taipei residents to participate actively in the grassroots elections as a means of displaying their community spirit. Lin Cheng-hsiou, director of the Bureau of Civil Affairs under the Taipei City Government, expressed hope that voter turnout would reach 45 percent this year. Past percentages averaged about 30 percent. According to the Taipei Election Committee, a record high of 1,384 candidates will be competing for 449 seats of borough chiefs in Taipei's 12 districts. The seats in 43 boroughs will be contested by just a single candidate, while the seats for 135 boroughs will be contested by at least four candidates.
RSS