■ DIPLOMACY
Panama ties ‘solid’: MOFA
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) expressed confidence yesterday that bilateral ties with Panama would not be affected regardless of the result of the Central American ally’s presidential poll today. “We believe that whichever candidate wins the election, bilateral relations between Taiwan and Panama will remain unchanged,” ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said. Relations between Taiwan and Panama, however, are thought to have wavered in recent years as Panama tries to develop economic and trade relations with Beijing.
■ CRIME
Lo Fu-chu released on bail
Former independent legislator Lo Fu-chu (羅福助) was released on bail yesterday over his alleged involvement in a land digging and construction scandal. The Taipei District Court rejected Taipei prosecutors’ request that Lo remain in detention and released him on NT$1 million (US$30,000) bail yesterday morning. Lo has been barred him from leaving the country. Prosecutors said they found the decision unacceptable and said they would appeal to the Taiwan High Court. Lo is alleged to have ordered workers to dig up land in a mountainous area in Xindian (新店), Taipei County, for a period of five or six years and flattening hills to create 15 baseball fields. Lo is suspected of illegally selling the land and applying with the local government to build apartments, prosecutors said.
■ RELIEF WORK
Relief ‘platform’ launched
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan and Japan will be in charge of launching an international disaster relief and rescue platform to coordinate humanitarian aid efforts by non-governmental organizations (NGO) in Southeast Asia. Under the leadership of Taiwan and Japan, a memorandum was signed by nine NGOs from Taiwan, six from Japan and one each from the US and Indonesia at the 5th Southeast Asian NGO Forum held in Japan late last month. The agreement provides a platform for the signatory NGOs to launch a mechanism in four years to coordinate humanitarian aid in the event of any natural disaster in the region, said David Wu (吳建國), deputy head of the ministry’s NGO Affairs Committee. As for other NGO-related programs, Wu said his committee would work with the Taiwan Nurses Association to dispatch nursing personnel to Afghanistan on June 1 to run a three-month training program for Afghan nurses.
■ ENERGY
Bureau calls for timers
The Bureau of Energy is calling on local households to install timers on their hot water dispensers to regulate the amount of time they are turned on as a way to save electricity. By using a timer on water-heating devices, local households could still have access to hot drinking water at any time while saving the country nearly 1.6 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, or about 0.8 percent of the country’s total electricity consumption, bureau officials said. The estimate was based on the results of a survey conducted by the nonprofit Industrial Technology Research Institute, which found that 85.2 percent of Taiwanese households keep their hot water dispensers running 24 hours a day and 81 percent keep their electrical thermal bottles running around the clock. It estimated that if timers were used across the country, some 1.3 billion kWh would be saved on the operation of hot water dispensers and nearly 290 million kWh would be saved on the use of hot water bottles.
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