■ SPORTS
Council moving south
The Sports Affairs Council, currently located in Taipei, is moving south and will start its operations in Kaohsiung beginning next month, council Deputy Chairman Lee Kao-hsiang (李高祥) said yesterday. The move is part of the administration's policy to relocate some government offices to the south to balance regional development and follows the Council of Agriculture's Fisheries Agency move to Kaohsiung late last year. The council will be relocated to the National Sports Training Center in Tsoying (左營), Kaohsiung City. Lee said the Cabinet had appropriated NT$28.37 million (US$735,400) for the relocation, including a monthly living allowance of NT$20,000 for each of the 114 staffers as compensation for the inconvenience.
■ POLITICS
KMT confirms nominations
The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) highest decision-making body yesterday confirmed the nomination of Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) and KMT Legislator Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) for the positions of speaker and deputy speaker respectively. The party decided to support Wang's proposed re-election as speaker after it won a landslide victory in the legislative elections, and selected Tseng as its deputy speaker candidate via a straw poll on Monday. The KMT's Central Standing Committee also passed amendments for the regulations on the establishment of the party's integrity committee yesterday, expanding its scope by increasing the number of members from 11 to 15. KMT spokesman Huang Yu-cheng (黃玉振) said the party is seeking to include more professionals in the committee to prevent inter-party corruption.
■ DIPLOMACY
Amendment includes Taiwan
By a vote of 25-3, the WHO executive board yesterday passed a China-sponsored amendment to the International Health Regulations of 2005 that includes Taiwan in the global health framework in principle, Taiwan's representative to Geneva Shen Lyu-shun (沈呂巡) told CNA yesterday. Despite earlier media reports saying that China wanted to block Taiwan's representation in the health agreement with its draft amendment, Shen said that Taiwan "did not lose" as the "universal application" clause proposed by Taiwan's allies, also called the "Taiwan clause," was in the amendment. The issue of Taiwan's representation in the regulations had been taken seriously and fully debated by the board, Shen said.
■ POLITICS
Alleged gangster released
A campaign worker for Democratic Progressive Party legislator-elect Yu Tien (余天), alleged gangster Wang Ying-lan (王瑛嵐), was released yesterday on NT$100,000 (US$3,000) bail over his alleged involvement in a case of threatening the supporters of an opposition candidate during the legislative election campaign. Police suspected that Wang warned a borough warden, Chuang Chin-lung (莊金龍), an entertainer better known as Kao Chun (高群), and other wardens not to support Yu's opponent, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chu Chun-hsiao (朱俊曉), and not to perform at Chu's campaign rallies. Police said Wang told Chuang he would gather some gangsters at Chung's home to "drink tea." Yu defeated Chu by a narrow margin in the Jan. 12 legislative elections, and Chu said he would file a lawsuit seeking to annul Yu's victory.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan
RSS