■Sport
Blind athletes win medals
Taiwan picked up a gold and a silver medal at the International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) games underway in Quebec City, Canada. Lee Ching-chung (李青忠) won a gold in the men's 60kg judo competition, while Hu Hsin-chung (胡馨中) grabbed a silver medal in the women's 200m breaststroke competition. Liang Keng-chin (梁耿縉) qualified for the final of the men's 100m dash event but did not win a medal. In the men's javelin competition scheduled for tomorrow, Chiang Chih-chung (江志忠) has a chance to grab another gold medal, delegation officials said. The IBSA games opened Aug. 1 and will finish on Tuesday.
■ Diplomacy
Examination chief in Britain
Examination Yuan President Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文) arrived in London Thursday night for a five-day visit to study British civil-servant training and the UK's retirement pension system. Yao is one of the few high-ranking Taiwanese officials to have visited the UK in the last few years. Yao's London visit is also to encourage qualified financial institutions to bid on Taiwan's pension fund investment operations. He stressed that any financial institution company with long-term good credit, which has a client service team in Taiwan, is qualified to bid in the investment operations. Yao said the opening of pension fund investments to foreign companies is to diversify the investment risks.
■ National security
Alleged spy convicted
A court in southwest China has sentenced a man to 18 years in jail for spying for Taiwan, amid increased accusations and counter-accusations between the two sides, the court said yesterday. Xu Jianchi (許劍池) was sentenced at the No. 1 Intermediate People's Court of Chongqing, a court official said, adding only that the sentencing took place "recently." Xu had amassed a large quantity of intelligence about Chinese political and military affairs, handing it over to Taiwanese authorities, the China News Service reported. Xu, who previously served an eight-year term for "harming national security," had received training and funding by Taiwanese agents, the news service said.
■ Travel
Apply early for US visas
Noting that there will undoubtedly be additional changes to the US visa process in the coming months and years, Keith Powell, acting deputy director of the American Institute in Taiwan, yesterday encouraged people planning travel to the US to apply for visas early. It usually takes three to six business days to process a visa application. Changes that have recently been implemented in a bid to strengthen security against terrorism include requiring personal interviews from a larger number of travelers than before and suspending the visa-free transit program.
■ Diplomacy
Taiwan highly praised
St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves reaffirmed Thursday that relations between his country and Taiwan are solid and that Taiwan has contributed a lot to the development of his country. Gonsalves made the remarks while hosting a dinner in honor of Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (簡又新). Gonsalves stressed that friendship between the two countries is firm, saying that his country is satisfied with all the support Taiwan has provided the country in the past, including the cooperation in agricultural technology.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift