CRIME
Former MIB chief impeached
The Control Yuan yesterday impeached former Military Intelligence Bureau director-general Ke Guang-ming (葛廣明) for allegedly embezzling NT$3.7 million (US$127,498) in 2008. The Control Yuan voted 12 to 1, passing a proposal initiated by Control Yuan members Yu Teng-fang (余騰芳) and Lee Ping-nan (李炳南) to impeach Ke. The Control Yuan later referred Ke to the Public Functionary Disciplinary Sanction Commission for discipline. On Aug. 17 last year, Ke was sentenced to 14 years in prison by a military court in the first trial of the case. Ke’s secretary, Tien Chia-tung (田家棟), was sentenced to two years and six months in prison for allegedly assisting him in the crime. Ke was accused of putting the funds in his personal safe and taking NT$450,000 for personal use.
ECONOMY
Kinmen Kaoliang posts record
A Kinmen County -Government-run liquor company reported record sales last year and vowed to expand its capacity. Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor Inc posted revenues of more than NT$12.3 billion (US$424 million) last year, of which NT$431 million originated in Xiamen, China, according to Yao Song-ling (姚松齡), managing director of the 59-year-old company. The company accounts for a substantial part of the annual revenue of Kinmen County. It contributed NT$4.9 billion to the county’s coffers last year on the back of strong sales, NT$700 million more than in 2009 and 22.5 percent more than projected in the company’s annual budget. The company also paid NT$2.88 billion in liquor tax to the central government, Yao said. Faced with competition from Chinese products, the company said it planned to raise annual production from 2.5 billion liters to between 4 billion and 4.2 billion liters within three years.
DIPLOMACY
More active WTO role sought
Taiwan will seek to play a more active role in the WTO this year, Taiwan’s WTO representative was quoted as saying in a recent interview with the WTO center of the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER), a Taipei-based think tank. In the interview, Lin Yi-fu (林義夫) said Taiwan intended to actively participate in multilateral trade negotiations and various committees under the WTO, adding that Taiwan’s delegation would seek to chair committees to boost its active participation this year. Taiwan will also seek to play more of a leading role in several negotiating groups it has joined, such as Recently Acceded Members (RAMs) — countries that negotiated and joined the WTO after 1995 — and Friends of A-D Negotiations (FANs), a coalition of countries lobbying for agriculture to be treated as a diverse and special case because of non-trade concerns, Lin was quoted as saying. He also said Taiwan should try to solve trade disputes through the WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism more often.
SOCIETY
New Taipei plans food banks
The New Taipei City (新北市) Government said it would soon establish food and daily necessity banks around the city to help tide disadvantaged people and families over the current cold weather. New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) said the city government would set up the commodity banks in 10 social welfare centers around the city prior to this year’s Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 3. Chu said the city government would foot the bill for the food and daily necessities to be provided by the banks. He also called on the public to make donations.
Staff Writer, with CNA
LITERATURE
ALS sufferer wins first prize
A woman suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) won first prize in a literature competition held at the Taipei International Flora Exposition on Sunday, for comparing her life to the short-lived, but glamorous night-blooming cereus, or moon flower. Lin Yueh-ku (林月姑), who has been suffering from ALS — known as Lou Gehrig’s disease — for 13 years. She used her middle finger to click a mouse and compose the 2,000-word piece titled Life of the Night-Blooming Cereus — the Transient Beauty, that stood out among the 201 submitted works. Able to type only 50 words per hour, the 54-year-old spent a month depicting scenes from her life.
ENTERTAINMENT
Chou enjoys US ‘vacation’
For pop singer Jay Chou (周杰倫), star of the smash hit The Green Hornet, Tinseltown offers a welcome break from the paparazzi in Asia. “As an artist, I need a lot of space, which I cannot really get in many places in Asia,” Chou told reporters yesterday ahead of the Chinese premiere of the superhero flick, which costars Seth Rogen. “It felt like I was having a vacation in the United States — I took my mother to the production and it felt really good to have some time for myself. I didn’t have that feeling of people surreptitiously taking my picture.” Chou, largely unknown in the US but hugely popular in Asia, plays the role of Kato, sidekick to the Green Hornet, played by Rogen. Rogen has declared himself a fan of Chou’s music, and he and director Michel Gondry have since joked that the singer would “force” them to listen to some of his tracks. “Jay many times took us in his car with his bodyguard and forced us to listen to his music very loud, and if we didn’t like it, he would beat us up,” Gondry joked.
Eight restaurants in Taiwan yesterday secured a one-star rating from the Michelin Guide Taiwan for the first time, while three one-star restaurants from last year’s edition were promoted to two stars. Forty-three restaurants were awarded one star this year, including 34 in Taipei, five in Taichung and four in Kaohsiung. Hosu (好嶼), Chuan Ya (川雅), Sushi Kajin (鮨嘉仁), aMaze (心宴), La Vie by Thomas Buhner, Yuan Yi (元一) and Frassi in Taipei and Front House (方蒔) in Kaohsiung received a one-star rating for the first time. Hosu is known for innovative Taiwanese dishes, while Chuan Ya serves Sichuan cuisine and aMaze specializes
Taitung County is to launch charter flights to Malaysia at the end of this year, after setting up flights to Vietnam and Thailand, the Taitung County Government said yesterday. The new charter flight services, provided by low-cost carrier Batik Air Malaysia, would be part of five-day tour packages for visits to Taitung County or Malaysia. The Batik Air charter flight, with about 200 seats, would take Malaysian tourists to Taitung on Dec. 30 and then at 12:35pm return to Kuala Lumpur with Taiwanese tourists. Another charter flight would bring the Taiwanese home on Jan. 3 next year, arriving at 5:30pm, before taking the
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) plans to ease strained capacity during peak hours by introducing new fare rules restricting passengers traveling without reserved seats in 2026, company Chairman Shih Che (史哲) said Wednesday. THSRC needs to tackle its capacity issue because there have been several occasions where passengers holding tickets with reserved seats did not make it onto their train in stations packed with individuals traveling without a reserved seat, Shih told reporters in a joint interview in Taipei. Non-reserved seats allow travelers maximum flexibility, but it has led to issues relating to quality of service and safety concerns, especially during
An exhibition celebrating Taiwan and Japan’s comic culture opened on Saturday in Taichung, featuring a section that explores Taiwanese reproductions of Japanese comics from when martial law limited Japanese representation. “A Century of Manga Culture: An Encounter of Taiwan and Japan’s Youth” held its Taiwan opening ceremony at Taichung’s National Taiwan Museum of Comics after an initial one-month run in Japan’s Kyoto International Manga Museum between May 24 and June 24. Much like the Kyoto exhibition, the show mainly celebrates the comic connection between Taiwan and Japan through late Taiwanese comic book
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