■POLITICS
Officials to meet Tibetan
Officials from Taiwan’s representative office in Japan are expected to meet a Tibetan-Taiwanese activist today who was arrested by Japanese authorities on Saturday for trying to grab the Olympic torch during the Japan leg of the relay in Nagano, said Peter Tsai (蔡明耀), deputy director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Committee of Japanese Affairs. Tsai said that Japanese authorities had asked the court to detain Tashi Tsering, the 38-year-old vice chairman of the Taiwan chapter of the Tibetan Youth Congress, for 10 more days on top of his initial 48-hour holding period, during which Tsering was kept incommunicado. “The government is doing all it can to have him repatriated and has requested the Japanese authorities to ensure his rights are respected during his incarceration,” Tsai said.
■POLITICS
Lien to attend Olympics
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) has agreed to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August at the invitation of Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong (郭金龍), the Central News Agency said. The invitation was issued during a sculpture unveiling ceremony in Beijing’s Olympic park yesterday, the agency said, adding that Lien and his wife had accepted the invitation. The sculpture was a gift from Lien to Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
■HEALTH
Man detained over coconuts
Taipei County law enforcement and consumer rights authorities yesterday tracked down a businessman suspected of illegally disposing of 21 tonnes of coconuts imported from Thailand that were found to contain residues of a banned pesticide. The businessman, Mo Yu-huei (莫酋惠), was taken to the Criminal Investigation Bureau early yesterday to be questioned. A local cable TV news station reported that Mo refused to say who bought the tainted coconuts but said his company had sold the goods to street vendors. Authorities yesterday inspected hypermarkets around the county, including RT-Mart, Carrefour and Wellcome, but none were found to be selling the suspect coconuts. The Department of Health reported on Monday that tests on samples from a shipment of some 30,000 Rungtawan coconuts showed they contained 0.18ppm of the fungicide Carbendazim.
■POLITICS
No China meet planned
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) chairman-designate Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) denied yesterday he was planning to meet the head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) on May 25. Chiang, who returned from a four-day visit to China on Monday afternoon, said in a written statement yesterday that he had no plans to visit China again next month, as the government’s power transfer and reshuffle of the SEF would be his priority during the period. “I never planned to visit China on May 25 and I certainly will not take the occasion to meet Chen,” Chiang said. Chiang issued the statement in response to a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News, which claimed that Chiang had cancelled his meeting with Chen on Monday afternoon after receiving a telephone call from China. The story blamed the cancellation of Chiang’s China visit on president-elect Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) appointment of former Taiwan Solidarity Union legislator Lai Shin-yuan (賴辛媛) as the chairperson of the Mainland Affairs Council.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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