■ Crime
Bounty on fugitives raised
The cash reward for infor-mation leading to the arrest of prominent fugitives will be raised from the NT$1 million (US$29,410) to NT$10 million to give people more incentive to come forward, Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday. Yu told lawmakers that the reward program is expected to be put into force in one week to facilitate apprehension of former Kaohsiung City Council speaker Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄), former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Tse-yuan (伍澤元) and others. Yu said foreign nationals and governments, including that of China, would be eligible to receive the rewards. Chu was convicted of vote-buying. Wu was convicted of corruption in 1996.
■ Government
Control Yuan slams MOTC
Members of the Control Yuan imposed corrective mea-sures on the Ministry of Transportation and Com-munications yesterday for improperly handling of the release of shares of Chung-hua Telecom to public investors. "The ministry failed to carry out the share release of Chunghua Tele-com according to a plan mapped out by the govern-ment, which emphasized that the release must be based upon the principle of fair-ness to public investors," Control Yuan members said in their decision. They ruled that the ministry's derelic-tion of duty allowed key businesspeople to dominate the share release last December.
■ Taipei County
More people, less cash
Rapid population growth has aggravated the financial difficulties of the Taipei County Government, an official said yesterday. Lo Ching-hsio (駱清秀), director of the Department of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, told a county government meeting that over the past six years, the population has increased by 250,000 to 3.67 million, pushing up annual government spending from NT$63.2 billion (US$1.86 billion) in 1998 to NT$89.7 billion this year, or a hike of 42 percent. The spending increase and the decrease in tax revenues have boosted government debt to NT$56 billion, he said.
■ Health
SARS scare rebuffed by CDC
A person who recently returned from China was briefly suspected of being the first case of suspected SARS this fall, the Chinese-language media reported
late last night. The uniden-
tified person sought treat-ment at a private hospital
in Kaohsiung after suffering from a fever for two days,
a typical symptom of SARS. The hospital referred the patient to a municipal hos-pital for further treatment last night, triggering a panic among other patients at
the facility and their families. But a senior Center for Disease Control official
said that no new cases of SARS have been reported
to the center so far. "There
is no reported case of SARS in Kaohsiung. If there were such case, we would have reported it to the World Health Organization," said Shih Wen-yi (施文儀), the center's deputy director general.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard