■ Crime
Assassination plotter nabbed
Lai Chu-hsing (賴注醒) was arrested by prosecutors yesterday for allegedly planning to assassinate President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Police said Lai had recently distributed flyers calling for the establishment of a revolutionary party to assassinate Chen. Lai was invited on several TV programs to talk about his assassination plan. Lai was arrested yesterday afternoon as he was on his way to a TV station to participate in a talk show. Lai told reporters that the best time to assassinate Chen would be during the May 20 inauguration ceremony. The 40-year old Lai is reportedly an entrepreneur who sells water.
■ Society
Four missing at sea
Four people were reported missing yesterday after a ferry boat overturned off Hsiaoliuchiu island, officials said. The boat shuttling between the fishing harbor of Tungkang in Pingtung County and the island capsized at 6:15am as it approached the island, the National Rescue Command Center said. "Airborne and maritime search has been underway," an official said. He said one sailor had been rescued from the vessel after he managed to grab hold of a log and stay afloat for at least an hour before being plucked to safety by another boat. Missing are the skipper, another sailor and two passengers. Hundreds of racing pigeons being transported on the ferry died.
■ Expatriates
Heritage activities in LA
The annual Taiwanese-American Heritage Week kicked off in the greater Los Angeles area on Saturday, with hundreds of members of major Taiwanese associations joining a riverbed clean-up campaign with other Asian-Pacific ethnic groups as part of the celebrations of Asia-Pacific Heritage Month. Huang Wen-ku, president of the Taiwanese-American Citizens Association, that a series of cultural, sports and culinary activities will be staged during Taiwanese-American Heritage Week to promote multicultural exchanges, encourage Taiwanese-Americans to take part in mainstream US social activities and promote traditional Taiwanese folk arts, crafts and festivities.
■ Politics
Soong mahjong jibe denied
The People First Party (PFP) yesterday denied that its chairman, James Soong (宋楚瑜), left a demonstration on April 10 to play mahjong. Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) last week suggested that the PFP chairman left the protesters -- who were calling for a recount and an investigation into an assassination attempt on the president -- to play mahjong before the demonstration became violent. PFP spokesman Hsieh Kong-ping (謝公秉) yesterday detailed Soong's activities on April 10 and said the party would not rule out filing a defamation suit against Lee.
■ Diplomacy
Equipment donated
Taiwan has donated a batch of information-technology equipment worth US$20,000 to the Paraguayan government in a bid to help upgrade its administrative efficiency, an official from the Republic of China embassy said on Saturday. Ambassador Bing Yen (顏秉璠) delivered the materials, including 16 computers, digital cameras, fax machines and printers, to the Paraguayan government at a dinner party hosted by President Nicanor Duarte Furtos on April 26. Duarte expressed his heartfelt gratitude for Taiwan's generous donation.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
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