■ SOCIETY
Lofty name nixed
A household registration office has rejected a women's application to change her name to "Hung Occult God of Wealth President," on the grounds that one's name cannot contain "president." The Nantou County woman recently applied to the Tsaotun (草屯) Household Registration Office to change her name. "She was in her 30s. She did not tell us why she wanted to change her name," an official from Tsaotun Household Registration Office told reporters. "We rejected her application because it contains the word `president.' We told her that the name is not suitable but she can appeal our rejection," the official said. Under the law, a citizen's name must use Chinese characters listed in standard dictionaries. A citizen can change his or her name twice in a lifetime.
■ CRIME
Poet arrested for threats
Writer and poet Huang Jen-ho (黃人和), who publishes his work under the pseudonym Tu Shi-san (杜十三), was apprehended by the Taipei Shihlin District Prosecutors' Office yesterday afternoon for threatening Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) in a drunken telephone call on Nov. 1. After being interrogated for three hours yesterday evening, Huang, 55, confessed to making the call in which he identified himself as a member of the Taiwan Liberation Alliance (台灣解放聯盟) and threatened to kill every member of Hsieh's family. He also said he regretted his actions and apologized to Hsieh. Hsieh in turn said he felt sorry for Huang and would not file a lawsuit against him. Hsieh said Taiwanese society has been polarized by political disputes and hatred. He urged people not to mimic such anti-social behavior and to solve problems through discussion.
■ POLITICS
Officials deny media report
The Presidential Office yesterday refuted a report by local Chinese-language media, which claimed that more than 400 staff working at the Presidential Office have been investigated because of alleged illegal conduct by former deputy secretary-general Chen Che-nan (陳哲男). According to the Presidential Office's Department of Public Affairs, an Accounting Department official, Kao Shen-shen (高慎慎), is the only staff member to have been questioned. A probe into possible illegal conduct by Chen will be completed by Friday, and the results will be released then. It aims to determine whether any staff lent their personal bank accounts to Chen for his personal use.
■ DEFENSE
Legislators cut arms budget
Opposition lawmakers yesterday cut a proposed NT$272.62 million (US$8.1 million) outlay in preparation for a major arms procurement package from the Ministry of National Defense's (MND's) budget plan for next year, saying it is not necessary since the package is not yet certain. A joint meeting of the National Defense Committee and the Budget Committee of the Legislative Yuan was reviewing the budget when opposition legislators nixed the complementary spending for the arms package. The package proposes buying three Patriot missile batteries, eight diesel-electric submarines and 12 P-3C Orion aircraft. The legislators proposed cuts to the budget for Patriot missiles but will leave the matter to the next joint meeting. The items require preparatory spending on things such as administrative fees.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
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