■ Accidents
Falling tree injures student
A Taiwanese woman studying in New Zealand was in critical condition in a hospital yesterday after being crushed by a tree blown down during a storm, news reports said. The woman, aged about 21, suffered serious head injuries when a tree fell on her near Waikato University in Hamilton, as winds of up to 150kph lashed the North Island on Wednesday. Parents of the student, whose name was not released, were flying to New Zealand, reports said.
■ Diplomacy
Okinawa office established
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs established a representative office in Naha, Okinawa on Feb. 1, deputy secretary-general of the ministry-affiliated Association of East Asian Relations James Liao (廖經邦) said yesterday. The new office aims to deal with the increasingly frequent trade interactions between Taiwan and Okinawa, said Liao, adding that it had nothing to do with Taiwan's stance on the Diaoyutais (釣魚台), an island chain that Taiwan claims sovereignty over. Okinawa comprises the Ryukyu Islands and Diaoyutais. In the past, Taiwan's representative office in Okinawa existed as a non-governmental organization.
■ Travel
No more stamps
Passengers leaving the country no longer need to have their boarding passes stamped, the National Immigration Agency said. Immigration officers at the country's international airports put a stamp on departing passengers' boarding pass as a part of passenger identification procedures, but the agency now considers this action a waste of time. It said that if each stamp took two seconds, the total time saved by the new measure, applied to an estimated 20,000 passengers each day, would be 11 hours. The agency added that stamping boarding passes was no longer practiced in other nations and contributed little to security.
■ Politics
Majority favor referendum
Nearly 85 percent of Taiwanese believe a referendum should be held whenever Taiwan signs agreements with China related to its sovereignty, a poll released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) showed. The poll showed that 84.8 percent of respondents favored referendums, compared with 9.7 percent who said they were not necessary. Meanwhile, 83.2 percent said only Taiwanese were entitled to define the cross-strait status quo, compared with 1.7 percent who said that Beijing should define it and 6.4 percent who said both sides should have a say. The polls also showed that 69.2 percent thought Taiwan was an independent and sovereign country, compared with 14.6 percent who said Taiwan was part of China. The poll was conducted on March 7 and March 8. A total of 1,034 samples were collected.
■ Litigation
Court rules against MOEA
The Taipei High Administrative Court yesterday withdrew a NT$5 million fine that the Ministry of Economic Affairs imposed on Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) founder Richard Chang (張汝京) in 2005. The ministry alleged that Chang, who it says was then a Taiwanese citizen, invested illegally in China. In addition to fining Chang, the ministry also sought to force him to withdraw his investment within six months. Chang invested in Shanghai-based SMIC in December 2000 without obtaining permission from the ministry, claimg he was a US citizen.
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
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
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard