■ Smuggling
Produce-runners detained
The Coast Guard nabbed three Chinese fishing boats in Kinmen and detained a total of 17 people who were on the boats yesterday for smuggling farm produce. Coast Guard officials said that they seized about 600kg of produce that included rice, peanuts, mushrooms, eggs, dried oysters and vegetables on three boats that intruded into Taiwan waters. All three boats and all suspects detained came from Xiamen, Fujian Province, the officials said. Given that a three-month seasonal suspension of fishing in waters off Fujian began Saturday, increased smuggling from China using the idled fishing boats was expected in the area. Coast Guard forces will increase patrol missions in territorial waters to curb illegal commercial activities and prevent the spread of contagious diseases from China, particularly SARS, which recently reappeared in Beijing and Anhui Province.
■ Travel
Crash victims aided
Taiwanese officials posted in Japan have contacted a group of Taiwanese tourists injured in a bus crash in the town of Oshamanbe on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said yesterday. Richard Shih (石瑞琦) said officials at Taiwan's representative office in Tokyo have offered to help the 27 tourists, all of whom suffered injuries in the accident. Twenty-five have been released from hospital, while two remain there for further observation. The only fatality in the accident was the bus driver, who died after being sent to hospital. The tourists were on a bus headed to the airport on their way back to Taiwan after a five-day tour in Hokkaido when the bus tipped over onto the highway's safety island. All the tourists, except the two who remain in hospital, were expected to fly back to Taiwan yesterday, Shih said.
■ Labor
Referendums called for
A labor group yesterday called for a referendum on a labor pension program it has devised and on a change to the election system for legislators. Lu Tien-lin (盧天麟), president of the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions, told a news conference on Labor Day that the confederation has developed a pension plan for workers that is patterned on the one for government employees and military personnel. Under the pension plan, Lu said, workers would pay a premium every month while they are employed in return for a monthly pension after they retire. Furthermore, Lu said the confederation will press for a referendum on revising the current election system for legislators which he said produces lawmakers standing for extreme political views. In order to address this problem, Lu said his confederation advocates an election system in which the voters are given two votes -- one for individual candidates and one for a political party.
■ Diplomacy
Chadian minister to visit
Chadian Minister of Public Health Aziza Baroud will arrive in Taipei tomorrow, heading a four-member delegation for a five-day visit, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The visit is aimed at promoting bilateral relations and cooperation, ministry officials said. During their stay in Taiwan, Baroud and his delegation will visit the ministry, the Department of Health under the Executive Yuan, the Center for Disease Control, the International Cooperation and Development Fund and medical facilities, the officials said. The visitors are scheduled to depart May 7.
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