■ CRIME
Kuo Kuan-ying indicted
Prosecutors charged former Toronto-based Government Information Office official Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) yesterday with defamation for making personal attacks on former Presidential Office secretary-general Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) and Contemporary Magazine editor-in-chief Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒). Chen and Chin filed a lawsuit on April 1, accusing Kuo of publishing articles in which he called them“violent pro-independence dogs” and other names. Using the pen name Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽), Kuo on Dec. 15 described the two as “violent pro-independence supporters” and “eunuch’s dogs,” adding that he himself was a “high-class Mainlander” and that Chen and Chin were “high-class Mainlander dogs,” the pair said. The indictment said Kuo’s comments had damaged Chen and Chin’s reputations. Kuo was stripped of his civil servant status in March in the wake of a controversy over online articles he wrote under Fan and other pen names that smeared Taiwan and Taiwanese.
■ SOCIETY
No decision on tombs site
The Tainan City Government said on Thursday that no decision would be made on relocating a group of ancient tombs unearthed at a military residential compound in January until the end of this month. Department of Culture and Tourism Director Hsu Geng-hsiu (許耿修) said the city government asked a professional archeology group to examine the site, where at least 60 tombs dating back to the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty are located. The tombs were unearthed in Shuijiao She (水交社), one of the largest military residential compounds in Tainan, when workers were clearing land for the development of new roads. The site is believed to be a graveyard for people who died during the era when Koxinga’s son, Zheng Jing (鄭經), ruled the Tainan area at the end of the Ming Dynasty. Artifacts unearthed from the site so far include tea pots, bronze coins and ceramics.
■ CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Wu in Changsha for forum
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) arrived yesterday in Changsha, Hunan Province, to attend the KMT-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forum on economic and cultural exchanges that begins today. Before boarding a chartered flight at Taipei’s Songshan Airport yesterday, Wu told reporters the forum would focus on education and culture. Talks will be held on how to preserve and ensure the continuation of Chinese culture while trying to innovate, he said, adding that other subjects include cross-strait cooperation in the promotion of the culture industry and educational exchanges. Wu said the forum was no longer limited to KMT and CCP participants.
■ POLITICS
Ex-lawmaker appeals
Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), who last month lost his legislative seat because of vote-buying, filed an appeal with the Control Yuan yesterday, calling on it to impeach the prosecutors and judges in charge of his case. The Tainan Branch of the Taiwan High Court on June 30 upheld a lower court’s decision that invalidated Chang’s legislative victory last year. The final verdict said the election was not fair and valid because Chang’s father bought votes for his son. Chang said the witness statement was fabricated by prosecutors and that the lawyer of a suspect-turned-prosecution-witness and prosecutors did not record the whole investigation.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
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