■ Crime
Salesman gets life in Manila
A Kaohsiung salesman was jailed for life in the Philippines yesterday for smuggling drugs, a court said. Hsu Jiu-chang, 30, was found guilty of smuggling 7.5kg of methampethamine hydrochloride, also known as "ice," on a commercial plane that arrived at Manila airport in September 2001. Customs police found the drugs mixed with Chinese wine in a jar that the defendant, a marketing agent of Touch Radio Co, had hand-carried on the flight from Xiamen, court records show. Court officials said Hsu had pleaded innocent and that he had brought in the jar as a favor to a friend who wanted it delivered to another person in the Philippines.
■ Cross-strait Ties
Beijing names new official
China yesterday appointed a Taiwanese speaker who has been dealing with Taiwanese investors as a vice minister for Taiwan affairs. The State Council named Zheng Lizhong (鄭立中), 53, Communist Party boss of Xiamen, as deputy director of the policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office, the official Xinhua news agency said. Taiwanese investors have poured billions of dollars into Xiamen and other parts of Fujian Province. The appointment of Zheng, who replaces the retiring Li Bingcai (李炳才), is part of a shift in the government's policy towards Taiwan.
■ Politics
Protesters take aim at Japan
A group of Aborigines will protest at a controversial Tokyo war shrine next week to demand that the names of Taiwanese soldiers listed there be removed, organizers said yesterday. The 60-member group, led by Aboriginal independent Legislator May Chin (高金素梅), will also travel to Osaka where a court is expected to deliver a verdict on June 17 on a legal case seeking the removal of the names from the Yasukuni shrine. Aboriginal groups have staged several protests against Taiwan Solidarity Union Chairman Shu Chin-chiang (蘇進強) for making a pilgrimage to Yasukuni in April. They demanded Shu apologize for visiting the shrine. Su argued that he was paying tribute to some 28,000 Taiwanese -- many of them Aborigines forced to join the Japanese military -- whose names were enshrined there, not war criminals.
■ Society
Wuer Kaixi juggles debt
Tiananmen student leader and veteran activist Wuer Kaixi (吾爾開希) has said he will repay credit-card debts totaling NT$630,000 (US$20,200). Wuer Kaixi, who is married to a Taiwanese woman and is resident in this country, visited the offices of the Bank of Shanghai yesterday morning to say that he was able to repay the debt in installments. If payments were made on schedule, the bank said, it would not seize his assets. Wuer Kaixi applied for a credit card and a subsidiary card for his wife, Chen Hui-ling (陳慧玲), in September 2002, and subsequently spent heavily on hotels and restaurants. Originally, he was able to make the scheduled payments, but after taking out a credit-card loan in September 2003, he was only able to make minimum payments and the debt spiraled out of control. The bank recently took legal action to reclaim the debt.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it