CRIME
Cannabis seized in Taoyuan
A shipment of about 6kg of smuggled cannabis was seized by customs officials at a cargo services center near Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Thursday. The 6,225g of drugs were found stashed in two large boxes during a clearing inspection at Taiwan Air Cargo Terminal’s facility, one of the largest air cargo centers at the airport, the bureau said. The shipment was destined for Hualien County, it said. With the assistance of Hualien police, the find was later connected to a suspect surnamed Wu (吳), who said that he was only receiving the package on behalf of a friend in prison. The man was taken to the Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office for further questioning, the bureau said, adding that authorities would expand their search to see whether there are possible suspects in the case.
GOVERNANCE
Cultural center opened
The Ministry of Culture yesterday inaugurated the Mongolian and Tibetan Cultural Center, which is to take over the promotion and preservation of Mongolian and Tibetan culture from the now-disbanded Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission. The commission was disbanded last month as part of a government restructuring plan, and its tasks and budgets were distributed among the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Mainland Affairs Council. The Mongolian and Tibetan Cultural Center, housed on the former premises of the commission, is headed by Hsu Kuei-hsiang (徐桂香), who served as chief secretary of the commission. The center is also to supervise Mongolian and Tibetan cultural foundations, organize exhibitions, preserve historical documents and artifacts, and train talent in the field, the Ministry of Culture said.
MEDIA
MOJ accused of power abuse
The Control Yuan on Wednesday issued a reprimand to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), saying officials have been abusing their power and infringing on press freedom by investigating members of the media. According to the Control Yuan, its investigations have revealed that some ministry officials have been using lie detectors and accessing journalists’ phone records to investigate members of the media. In response, the ministry’s Agency Against Corruption issued a statement defending agency officials saying they were performing their official duties without the purview of a clear law. The agency said it would draft a law to define its duties and how its officials should carry them out independently while also protecting human rights.
IMMIGRATION
Tsai welcomes exchanges
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday stated her administration’s commitment to allow more foreign nationals to study in Taiwan at a reception for a delegation of Malaysian alumni of local universities. Tsai hosted the delegation of officers from the Federation of Alumni Associations of Taiwan Universities, Malaysia, reiterating her administration’s desire to promote more academic and cultural exchanges between both countries’ students, as part of the New Southbound Policy. The growing numbers of Malaysian students attending Taiwan’s universities have made campuses more diverse, she said. Tsai’s goal is to create a cross-national talent base in Asia that will benefit the whole region’s development, the Presidential Office said in a statement on the event. The government is working on policies to make sure that foreign nationals who want to stay and work could do so, Tsai added.
‘CROCODILE TEARS’: The Taiwan Statebuilding Party said the Kaohsiung mayor was only apologizing after a poll revealed that 45% of the city’s residents favored a recall Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) at a city council session yesterday apologized for taking three months off last year to campaign for January’s presidential election. Han said that he was now prioritizing municipal affairs and was focused primarily on preventing the spread of COVID-19. He was “doing two days’ work each day” to make up for time lost, he said. Han on May 5 attended a city council session for the first time in 201 days, giving a report on pandemic response measures. At yesterday’s session, Han said the Kaohsiung City Government would be injecting NT$50 million (US$1.67 million) into the
Taipei City Councilor Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) on Saturday urged the Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs to designate the Japanese colonial-era Showa Building (昭和樓) a cultural heritage site to protect it from being demolished. Wu made the remarks after the department on Tuesday last week visited the building to evaluate it for preservation, a standard procedure before a public building that is more than 50 years old is razed. The Showa Building, on Zhongxiao E Road Sec 2, was a rare kind of office building when it was constructed in 1942, Wu said. The three-story building was built with reinforced concrete and has European-style
A proposal by the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) to permanently ban sitting in Taipei Railway Station’s main hall has received a mixed reaction online, with some social media users vowing to launch a sit-in at the station. Gatherings at the hall have been prohibited since Feb. 29 in accordance with the Central Epidemic Command Center’s policy of reducing crowd sizes in public places. A Facebook user organizing the sit-in said that the hall is a public space and there is no legitimate reason to ban sitting on the floor. He said he suspected that the proposal was made due to business considerations and
Chinese over-the-top (OTT) service provider iQiyi cannot register as a provider in Taiwan after the Mainland Affairs Council declared it to be an illegal service, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday. Both iQiyi and WeTV were deemed to be illegal Chinese OTT operators in an interdepartmental meeting on Friday last week, officials said, adding that this prohibits them from marketing their services in Taiwan or seeking subscribers. The government plans to block a local server that iQiyi has been using to transmit content to domestic audiences, which would disrupt its content transmission. OTT Entertainment Ltd, which is enlisted by iQiyi to
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