POLITICS
Protest amendment finalized
The Cabinet finalized a draft amendment yesterday that exempts outdoor rallies of an urgent or incidental nature from requiring advance permission from the authorities. The draft amendment to the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) is now to be submitted to the Legislative Yuan for approval. The change was proposed based on a ruling issued by the Council of Grand Justices in March, which said that the current requirement violated the constitutionally protected freedom of assembly and would therefore be struck down on Jan. 1 next year. According to the draft, the organizers of urgent rallies will only need to notify police of their plan in advance, while incidental cases, which are initiated spontaneously by protesters and do not have a specific organizer, will not need to do that. The draft stipulates that urgent or incidental rallies cannot be held on main thoroughfares, except when such assemblies do not disrupt traffic. There cannot be more than one such rally at any one site or at the same time as other rallies, it states.
SOCIETY
Train strikes, kills man
A man who was struck and killed by a Puyuma Express train in Keelung yesterday afternoon had apparently trespassed onto the tracks, the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) said. The incident occurred near Nuannuan Station at 2:41pm. Police said they were still trying to identify the man. Regular railway operations resumed by 3:39 pm, but the delay already affected 10 trains and 3,015 passengers, the railway agency said. It said the driver had not been able to stop in time. Passengers on the northbound No. 417 were transferred to a commuter train. Just two days earlier, another Puyuma Express heading to Taipei from eastern Taiwan had one of its windows shattered on the same stretch of track by construction equipment.
ENTERTAINMENT
‘The Heirs’ star to visit
Fans of the popular South Korean TV drama The Heirs might get a chance to see costar Park Shin-hye next month as she is expected to visit Taipei on the second leg of her Asian tour, her agency said. Park is scheduled to meet fans on Sept. 14 in Taipei’s Xinyi District, where she is expected to perform songs from the drama and offer fans some customized surprises, S.A.L.T. Entertainment said. She will visit Thailand later in September and Singapore in October on a tour dubbed 2014 Story of Angel. The tour began in China, where the 24-year-old actress met with fans in Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Changsha and Beijing. Park has 6.5 million followers on Sina Weibo.
COMMUNICATIONS
No. 1 in smartphone use
The use of smartphones for Internet connections is more extensive in Taiwan than in any other nation, consumer survey released by Yahoo on Wednesday found. The survey of 32 countries, conducted by Yahoo and the research agency Millward Brown, showed that Taiwanese spend an average 197 minutes per day online on their smartphones, while the global average is 142 minutes. According to Yahoo, 50 percent of people in Taiwan own a smart handheld device that is used to check e-mail, read news, share photographs and search for information. It said this trend indicates great potential for development of and business opportunities in the nation’s mobile market. About 9 million people in Taiwan connected to Yahoo’s services via a mobile device in June, nearly double the number in January last year, the company’s data shows.
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