■ Crime
Prosecutors summon Wang
Taipei prosecutors yesterday decided to summon Taipei City Councilor Mike Wang on July 1 for his using fake video footage to accuse local restaurants of allegedly selling mortuary food to customers. Prosecutors have summoned three of Wang's aides as well as several witnesses. They said that Wang's aides' testimonies are all in Wang's favor, saying that Wang did not know the details of the fake video. Wang, however, apologized to the public and said that he would take full responsibility for what his aides did, but he also denied that he staged the entire episode. In the meantime, according to the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office, witnesses' testimonies are against Wang, showing that he is the mastermind of the entire drama.
■ Law
Group discusses sovereignty
Reacting to a spate of fishing disputes with Japan and ensuing controversies surrounding the disputed sovereignty of the Diaoyutais (釣魚台), the Ocean Business Research Committee, an Executive Yuan ad-hoc group, sponsored a symposium on the situation of Taiwan's waters and government policies yesterday. The symposium, presided over by Coast Guard Administration Minister Shi Hwei-yow (許惠祐), focused its discussions on three areas, namely the situation of Taiwan's waters and strategies on related developments; the Chunxiao oil field and the Diaoyutais disputes; and the Spratlys Islands (南沙) and Pratas Islands (東沙) issue. Participants of the symposium included officials from the Ministry of the Interior, international law specialists, academics, legislators and government security advisers.
■ Diplomacy
Academic pooh-poohs meet
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday he is willing to meet with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in a third country, but while Beijing has not yet made any official response, a Beijing academic claimed yesterday that such a meeting is unlikely. Chen told a TV station in Taipei that he is ready to meet with Hu in a third country provided there are no additional prior conditions attached, including the "one-China" principle and the so-called "1992 consensus." Xu Bodong (徐博東), director of the Taiwan Research Institute at Beijing University, said that a meeting between Hu and Chen in a third country would signify a meeting between two chiefs of state. He said Beijing cannot possibly give up its "one China" policy, which he said is Beijing's "bottom line." Xu said that the "one China" principle was not something imposed by Beijing, because the ROC Constitution is based on the one-China framework.
■ Infrastructure
Chen pushes flood bill
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) urged the Legislative Yuan yesterday to review as soon as possible an eight-year, NT$80 billion (US$2.54 billion) flood-control budget. Chen made the appeal at a meeting with group chiefs of irrigation associations around Taiwan. Citing as an example the flood control project for the Keelung River, Chen said the NT$31.6 billion inundation-prevention plan faced strong opposition at that time. Those opposing the project have been proven wrong, as the Keelung River flood-control program has resolved the inundation problem in the areas around the river, Chen noted. The Cabinet has decided to allocate NT$80 billion to resolve the inundation problems, a task that was originally estimated to take 80 years.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift