Ma must help Chung: DPP
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to actively seek the release of Bruce Chung (鍾鼎邦), a Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioner who has been detained in China for more than a month. The DPP expressed its serious concern about Chung’s detainment and his family being kept from contacting him. “We urge the Ma administration to be responsible for the personal safety of Taiwanese,” DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) told a press conference yesterday. Chung, a manager at a Hsinchu-based technology firm, went to Jiangxi Province to visit relatives on June 15 and was reportedly detained by Chinese police on June 18 “for hijacking the signal of a Chinese TV station in 2003 from Taiwan with the help of Chinese nationals,” according to China’s Xinhua news agency. As personal safety is expected to be an integral part of the cross-strait negotiations on an investment protection agreement next month, Lin said, Chung’s arrest was ironic and was a “touchstone” of how Beijing would protect Taiwanese businesspeople in China if the agreement was signed.
TOURISM
No tours stopped by floods
No tour group to Beijing was canceled because of the heavy flooding that hit the Chinese capital at the weekend, the Travel Agent Association confirmed yesterday. The association’s secretary-general, Roget Hsu (許高慶), said the torrential rain on Saturday had delayed several flights to Beijing, affecting Chinese tourists as well as Taiwanese tourists leaving on that day. However, the association did not receive any report that any travel agency planned to cancel a trip to Bejing because of the disaster, Hsu said.
SEISMOLOGY
Quake jolts northeast Taiwan
A magnitude 4.2 earthquake jolted northeastern Taiwan early yesterday, but there were no reports of casualties or damage, according to the Central Weather Bureau. The tremor’s epicenter was located at sea 43km southeast of Yilan County Hall at a depth of 10.8km, the bureau’s Seismology Center said. Yilan’s Nanao Township (南澳) recorded the strongest reading at an intensity of 4, the center said.
CRIME
Kidnapped captain to return
A Taiwanese fishing boat captain who was recently freed after being held for 18 months by Somali pirates is expected to arrive today in Greater Kaohsiung, an official from the city’s Marine Bureau said yesterday. Wu Chao-yi (吳朝義), captain of the Shiuh Fu No. 1, along with his crew of 13 Chinese and 12 Vietnamese, was attacked by Somalian pirates on Dec. 25, 2010, off Madagascar and taken to Somalia. All 26 were released on July 17 following successful ransom negotiations and taken to Tanzania by a Chinese naval vessel. Chang Wen-chun, the boat’s owner, continued to pay his crew’s salaries during their captivity, while the Marine Bureau said it has been paying Wu’s family compensation of NT$4,000 per month. Officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Marine Bureau and the Fisheries Agency are scheduled to welcome Wu upon his arrival at Kaohsiung International Airport.
TRAFFIC SAFETY RULES: A positive result in a drug test would result in a two-year license suspension for the driver and vehicle, and a fine of up to NT$180,000 The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to authorize police to conduct roadside saliva tests by the end of the year to deter people from driving while under the influence of narcotics, it said yesterday. The ministry last month unveiled a draft of amended regulations governing traffic safety rules and penalties, which included provisions empowering police to conduct mandatory saliva tests on drivers. While currently rules authorize police to use oral fluid testing kits for signs of drug use, they do not establish penalties for noncompliance or operating procedures for officers to follow, the ministry said. The proposed changes to the regulations require
The Executive Yuan yesterday announced that registration for a one-time universal NT$10,000 cash handout to help people in Taiwan survive US tariffs and inflation would start on Nov. 5, with payouts available as early as Nov. 12. Who is eligible for the handout? Registered Taiwanese nationals are eligible, including those born in Taiwan before April 30 next year with a birth certificate. Non-registered nationals with residence permits, foreign permanent residents and foreign spouses of Taiwanese citizens with residence permits also qualify for the handouts. For people who meet the eligibility requirements, but passed away between yesterday and April 30 next year, surviving family members
Taiwanese officials are courting podcasters and influencers aligned with US President Donald Trump as they grow more worried the US leader could undermine Taiwanese interests in talks with China, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has said Taiwan would likely be on the agenda when he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) next week in a bid to resolve persistent trade tensions. China has asked the White House to officially declare it “opposes” Taiwanese independence, Bloomberg reported last month, a concession that would mark a major diplomatic win for Beijing. President William Lai (賴清德) and his top officials
The German city of Hamburg on Oct. 14 named a bridge “Kaohsiung-Brucke” after the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The footbridge, formerly known as F566, is to the east of the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, and connects the Dar-es-Salaam-Platz to the Brooktorpromenade near the Port of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Timo Fischer, a Free Democratic Party member of the Hamburg-Mitte District Assembly, in May last year proposed the name change with support from members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union. Kaohsiung and Hamburg in 1999 inked a sister city agreement, but despite more than a quarter-century of
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