■ Crime
Yunlin speaker free on bail
Yunlin County Council Speaker Chen Ching-hsiu (陳清秀) was released on NT$600,000 bail and banned from travelling outside the country early yesterday morning. Chen was trans-ferred to the Yunlin District Prosecutors Office for interrogation after prose-cutors raided his residence on Thursday. He allegedly helped legislative candidate Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) by treating nearly 200 voters and supporters to a free dinner party on Nov. 5. Yunlin Chief Prosecutor Lin Chih-feng (林志峰) sum-moned 13 witnesses in the case but none of them was detained after questioning.
■ Crime
Prosecutors probe anchor
The Taipei District Prose-cutors Office yesterday said that TV anchor Chen Sheng-hung (陳勝鴻) may have violated privacy regulations. A woman who identified herself as Chen's former girlfriend has complained that Chen videotaped their intimate encounters without her consent. Taipei District Prosecutors Office Spokes-man Lin Bang-liang (林邦樑) said prosecutors have begun an investigation. Lin said the prosecutors will ask the woman to provide the video footage. She said she acci-dentally discovered the video footage and is worried that the tape will be made public someday now that she and Chen are no longer a couple.
■ Aviation
Seoul routes allocated
The Civil Aeronautics Administration allocated Taiwan-South Korea pas-senger services between six airlines yesterday. The Taipei-Seoul route was assigned to China Airlines and EVA Airways and the Kaohsiung-Seoul line was given to UNI Airways and Mandarin Airlines. Far East Air Transport and TransAsia Airways got the Taipei-Jeju route while the Taipei-Busan line went to TransAsia Airways and UNI Airways. The airlines must file an application for an air-route certificate within a month and launch services within four months of the certifi-cate being issued.
■ Entertainment
CBS program lauded
A radio program produced by the Central Broadcasting System (CBS) has been rated as one of the top 10 English-language radio programs in the world for a second time by Passport to World Band Radio, an international short-wave-broadcasting maga-zine. "The Beauty of Tradi-tional Chinese Music," a program to introduce traditional Chinese music, was rated as a top 10 English-language radio show this year by the magazine. CBS chairman Lin Feng-cheng (林峰正) said the station will continue to produce quality programs. The program was named as a top 10 show in 2001.
■ Diplomacy
European Parliament hailed
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday welcomed a decision by the European Parliament to maintain its arms sales embargo against China. Ministry spokesman Michel Lu (呂慶龍) was referring to a vote by the parliament on Wednesday to continue the ban on arms sales to Beijing which was imposed shortly after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Lu said the decision shows that the EU still thinks that China has not done enough to improve its protection of human rights. The parliament said the arms embargo should continue until the EU has adopted a code of conduct providing legal restraints on arms exports, and until China takes concrete measures to improve its human rights situation.
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
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to 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), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition
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