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.
Eight Chinese naval vessels and 24 military aircraft were detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait between 6am yesterday and 6am today, the Ministry of National Defense said this morning. The aircraft entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the ministry said. The armed forces responded with mission aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems to closely monitor the situation, it added. Eight naval vessels, one official ship and 36 aircraft sorties were spotted in total, the ministry said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) today said that if South Korea does not reply appropriately to its request to correct Taiwan’s name on its e-Arrival card system before March 31, it would take corresponding measures to alter how South Korea is labeled on the online Taiwan Arrival Card system. South Korea’s e-Arrival card system lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan)” in the “point of departure” and “next destination” fields. The ministry said that it changed the nationality for South Koreans on Taiwan’s Alien Resident Certificates from “Korea” to “South Korea” on March 1, in a gesture of goodwill and based on the
Taiwanese officials were shown the first of 66 F-16V fighter jets purchased by Taiwan from the United States, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, adding the aircraft has completed an initial flight test and is expected to be delivered later this year. A delegation led by Deputy Minister of National Defense Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) visited Lockheed Martin’s F-16 C/D Block 70 (also known as F-16V) assembly line in South Carolina on March 16 to view the aircraft. The jet will undergo a final acceptance flight in the US before being delivered to Taiwan, the
The New Taipei Metro's Sanyin Line and the eastern extension of the Taipei Metro's Tamsui-Xinyi Line (Red Line) are scheduled to begin operations in June, the National Development Council said today. The Red Line, which terminates at Xiangshan Station, would be connected by the 1.4km extension to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, while the Sanyin Line would link New Taipei City's Tucheng and Yingge stations via Sanxia District (三峽). The council gave the updates at a council meeting reviewing progress on public construction projects for this year. Taiwan's annual public infrastructure budget would remain at NT$800 billion (US$25.08 billion), with NT$97.3
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