SOCIETY
Welfare banquets held
More than 30,000 homeless and Aboriginal people attended free year-end banquets held in 13 locations around the country on Wednesday, representing a record-high attendance for the annual event since 1990. The banquets — sponsored by the Huashan, Genesis and Ren-an Homeless Social Welfare Foundations in Taipei, Greater Taichung, Greater Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Greater Tainan, as well as Hualien and Chiayi counties — and the distribution of red envelopes containing NT$200, plus a NT$100 coupon, cost a total of NT$35 million (US$1.17 million). More than 2,000 volunteers helped to serve and provide some warmth to the needy ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday on Jan. 23. Hosting the year-end banquets was not easy this year, especially because they ended up with 30 percent less then their budget goal, the organizers said.
SOCIETY
Suspect’s body cremated
The body of Chang Chih-yang (張志揚), a Taiwanese man who was the main suspect in the murder of two of his Taiwanese language school classmates in Tokyo, was cremated in the Japanese city of Nagoya yesterday. Chang’s parents bought a pair of shoes as their last gift for their son before his cremation. They were scheduled to return to Taiwan with Chang’s ashes this morning. Lin Chih-ying (林芷瀅) and Julia Chu (朱立婕) were stabbed in their dormitory on Jan. 5. Chang slashed himself with a knife and bled to death on Monday while in police custody after he was located by police at a theater in Nagoya. Japanese police said Chang admitted to killing Lin and Chu with a knife and that he was remorseful. The ashes of the two victims were brought back to Taiwan by their families on Wednesday following their cremation in Tokyo.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard