Premier William Lai (賴清德) yesterday vowed to step up anti-narcotics efforts after he visited former premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), who urged him to place great importance on anti-drug efforts.
Lai paid a morning visit to Chang’s Kaohsiung residence and the former premier told him that drugs have increasingly become a pressing problem in Taiwan.
“The Philippines claims that Taiwan is the origin of drugs [entering its territory]. This is a very humiliating situation for Taiwan,” Chang said, referring to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s comments on Wednesday that the Taiwan-based Bamboo Union and Hong Kong-based 14K triad are behind the proliferation of drugs in his nation.
Photo: CNA
Drug use in Taiwan is also a grave concern, as there are more than 60,000 prisoners serving sentences for drug-related charges, accounting for 45 percent of the total number of inmates, Chang said.
“Social security is a priority of my Cabinet, and drug prevention is the most important project,” Lai said.
The government will take new drug-prevention approaches to prevent drug trafficking from other nations by increasing coast guard and customs inspection capacity with a concerted effort by the Coast Guard Administration and the ministries of justice and the interior, Lai said.
Laws will be revised to toughen the penalties for drug-related crimes, while authorities redouble their efforts to investigate and seize illicit substances, Lai said.
Educational campaigns will also be increased to prevent student drug abuse, Lai said.
As a Christian, Chang has worked with church networks to rehabilitate people convicted of drug offenses and to help inmates reconnect with their families so that improved family ties can help them after their release from prison, Lai said.
Chang, who served as premier under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) from 2000 to 2002 and from 2007 to 2008, said he approved of the economy-oriented politics of the new Cabinet, Lai said.
Lai also visited Chen in his Kaohsiung residence to pay his regards before heading to Chang’s residence, Executive Yuan spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said.
During Lai’s visit, Chen’s hands were shaking involuntarily, and a urine bag was visible outside his pants, indicating that the former president has been ill, Hsu said, apparently responding to a comment from Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on Friday that Chen had psychosomatic symptoms before actually falling ill.
Lai and Chen did not discuss Ko’s comments, but simply focused on the two men’s daily lives, with Lai wishing Chen good health, Hsu said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS