CRIME
DPP offices burglarized
A burglar broke into the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, stealing NT$90,000, but documents and equipment were left intact, the party said in a statement yesterday. Surveillance footage showed that a man broke into the eighth floor of the building and was inside for about 10 minutes before leaving without taking any files, computers or equipment, the DPP said. The party reported the incident to the police, who are investigating it, according to the statement. The DPP headquarters is in the Huashan Business Building on 30 Beiping E Road. Local media later yesterday reported that the suspect is a South Korean who is listed by Interpol as a thief.
GOVERNMENT
MOI to relax firefighter rules
The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) is to relax regulations on the recruitment of firefighters in an effort to increase the number of new recruits, the ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The revised rules would allow people older than 20 who have not spent time in prison in the past 10 years to apply as volunteer firefighters, regardless of their household registration address, the ministry said. Current regulations stipulate that people older than 20 who have not served time in prison or participated in court-ordered educational programs must reside at the address listed in their household registration to become volunteer firefighters.
SOCIETY
Nun receives citizenship
Philippine Catholic nun O Anuna, who has devoted almost half of her life to taking care of children with disabilities in Taiwan, yesterday officially became a Taiwanese citizen. “I am most joyful when with the children, and I am happy to be able to stay in Taiwan forever,” the 58-year-old sister said after receiving her Republic of China identification card from Chiayi County Commissioner Helen Chang (張花冠). Despite the challenges in taking care of children with disabilities she has encountered over the past 27 years, Anuna said that she has enjoyed the process, adding that her decision to become a Taiwanese citizen has also gained the support of her family. That she was given an ROC identification card shows that her love for the children has been appreciated, she said. Born in the Philippines in 1959, Anuna arrived in Taiwan in 1990 to serve at Sacred Heart Home, a charitable Catholic organization in Chiayi’s Dongshih Township (東石) that is dedicated to caring for individuals with moderate or severe disabilities.
TRANSPORTATION
Airport riders to pass 10m
Ridership on the Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line is expected to surpass 10 million by the end of the month, Taoyuan Metro Corp chairman Liu Kun-yi (劉坤億) said on Wednesday. The railway system had carried 8.6 million passengers as of the end of last month, about five months after it started commercial operations, Liu said. The line carries 54,000 passengers per day, with Taipei Main Station, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Airport Terminal 1, Airport Terminal 2 and Taoyuan High Speed Rail Station being the busiest stations, company statistics showed. The five stations account for 68 percent of total passengers using the line, with Taipei Main Station accounting for 2.25 million rides, or 26.1 percent, over the past five months. Taoyuan’s Hengshan and and Singnan stations are the least used, Liu said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift