■CRIME
Two indicted for spying
A senior Presidential Office employee and legislative aide were indicted yesterday on charges of providing classified information to China, a prosecutor said. Wang Ren-bing (王仁炳) was charged with violating the National Security Act (國安法) by leaking documents gathered during the last three years of former president Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) term, prosecutor Huang Mou-hsin (黃謀信) said. Legislative aide Chen Pin-jen (陳品仁) was indicted on similar charges, Huang said. A three-year jail term was suggested for both, he said. Huang said the leaked documents contained information about Chen Shui-bian's foreign visits, his anti-China political efforts and aid given to diplomatic allies. Wang is the first presidential office employee known to have been accused of spying for China.
■CRIME
SIP urges fugitive to return
The Supreme Prosecutors' Office Special Investigation Panel (SIP) yesterday urged fugitive Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪) to return home to face investigation. The former Tuntex Group chairman was indicted in late 2003 on suspicion of embezzling NT$800 million (US$23 million) from his company. He fled to China before eventually making his way to the US. Chen held press conferences in the US in 2003 alleging Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had taken bribes from him. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) said yesterday that fugitives were returning home because a friendly Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government was giving them special privileges, citing the case of director Liu Jia-chang (劉家昌). Liu and his wife were released on bail last Friday shortly after their return to Taiwan that same day. They were able to leave for Hong Kong on Tuesday night after the Bureau of Consular Affairs at Taoyuan International Airport issued Liu a temporary passport.
■DIPLOMACY
MOFA criticizes UN
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) criticized the UN yesterday for blocking Taiwanese from attending the Convention on the Status of Women (CSW), calling the treatment “very unfair.” “The CSW is a setting for non-governmental organizations, which means it should be opened to all people,” he said. Thanks to an objection from a Taiwanese non-governmental organization, the CSW convention had agreed to abolish the rule that only people holding UN-recognized passports could participate in the convention, which allowed all members of Taiwanese women’s rights groups who held valid US visas to enter the convention venue during the first three days of the meeting, he said. On the fourth day, UN staffers only allowed people holding UN-recognized passports to enter the facility. “We are getting to the bottom of the issue on why there is a difference between the convention policy and execution,” Chen said. He said the representative office in New York and the Department of International Organizations were investigating the incident.
■CRIME
US fugitive repatriated
US fugitive Mark Lee Kaczmarczyk was repatriated yesterday after paying a NT$2,000 fine for overstaying his visa. Kaczmarczyk was escorted by Criminal Investigation Bureau agents to Taoyuan International Airport and handed over to FBI agents on an EVA Airways plane bound for the US. He is wanted in California for allegedly molesting six children at a daycare center. He arrived in Taiwan on Jan. 8 from Hong Kong and was arrested in Taipei last month.
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