ENTERTAINMENT
Microsoft to offer TV service
Microsoft Corp yesterday announced its first TV service in Taiwan, as the world’s largest software company sought to break into the local TV market in cooperation with a cable operator. The on-demand service, which at present is only available to subscribers of cable operator Vee TIME in Taichung city and county, allows users to watch or access TV programs on various Internet-connected devices, including televisions with set-top boxes, computers and smartphones running the Windows operating system. “Cable subscribers have felt it inconvenient that they cannot organize favorite programs or pay by the number of channels they use. We have solved these problems by using Microsoft’s media platform Mediaroom,” Vee TIME chairman Richard Lai (賴富源) said. The service was expected to help increase the company’s number of subscribers from 780,000 this year to 1.5 million by next year, he said.
ENVIRONMENT
Government promotes green
Taiwan is working to foster an environment that will encourage private companies and local residents to develop green industries and combat global warming and resource degradation, Environmental Protection Administration Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) said. The centerpiece of the government’s plan, Shen said, was to promote the birth of 50 low-carbon communities around Taiwan over the next two years, six low-carbon cities within five years and four low-carbon living regions with 10 years. To achieve these goals, the government will push companies and banks devoted to ecological conservation to open offices in “low-carbon special zones,” in which electric vehicles will serve as the main means of transport, Shen said, adding that the government also planned to make the agricultural sector more environmentally friendly and turn incinerators into biomass energy production centers.
HEALTH
New dengue case in north
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has announced a new case of dengue fever in Taipei County and put the north of the country on alert. A 72-year-old man from Wugu Township (五股) this week became the third confirmed case of indigenous dengue fever in Taipei County this year. CDC deputy director Lin Ting (林頂) said that many more cases might come to light. The elderly patient had not visited the south nor been abroad, but lives close to two patients who were infected with dengue fever after returning from a trip to Cambodia in August. “We have reason to believe that this is the result of a cluster infection and suspect that the elderly patient is not the only indigenous dengue patient living in Wugu,” Lin said. The Department of Health has set up a dengue screening station to provide free blood tests, with Lin warning people in the north not to lower their guard regarding possible infection.
CRIME
Former prosecutor sentenced
The Taiwan High Court’s Kaohsiung branch yesterday sentenced a former prosecutor to seven years, six months in prison on counts of corruption, rape, forced obscene acts and obstruction of personal freedom. Wu Chieh-jen (吳傑人), who worked out of the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office, was found guilty of committing the crimes against more than 10 women who were targets of his investigations between 1999 and 2006, the court said. According to the ruling, Wu used his influence as a prosecutor to coerce the women to have sex with him.
CULTURE
Taiwanese wins film award
Let’s Be Friends!, directed by Taiwanese filmmaker Wang Chun-chiang (王君強), won a Certificate of Honorable Mention at the 58th annual Columbus International Film and Video Festival in Columbus, Ohio, Taiwan’s liaison office in Chicago said yesterday. The documentary displays Taiwanese people’s passion and friendliness and the depth of Chinese culture preserved in Taiwan, the office said. It is hoped the film will encourage foreigners to study Chinese in Taiwan, the office added. Established in 1952 to encourage the use of film and video in all forms of education and communication, the event is one of the oldest film festivals in North America.
DIPLOMACY
Brothers held in Tanzania
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Monday night confirmed that two Taiwanese brothers surnamed Hsu (許) have been detained in Tanzania for over a year. The ministry said it has been monitoring the situation closely. Ministry spokesman James Chang (章計平) said the older brother was the captain of an Oman-registered fishing boat, Tawariq 1. The elder brother, along with a crew of 30-plus, was detained by Tanzania on March 8 last year for fishing illegally and holding an expired fishing license, Chang said. The captain’s younger brother, who operated a boat based in Kenya, was also detained when he went to Tanzania to try and rescue his elder brother. Chang said the matter was brought to the ministry’s attention on Oct. 25 last year and the country’s representative offices in South Africa and Oman have been closely watching the situation and providing assistance. Chang said the ship owner has hired lawyers to oversee the legal process and that the Omani government was also involved as the boat was registered in that country.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
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
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
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