TOURISM
New fee for driving permits
Foreign visitors would soon be required to pay a fee of NT$150 to get an international driving permit after 30 days in Taiwan, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The announcement was made following an amendment to regulations on highway certificate and motor vehicle fees, the ministry said. Visitors from reciprocating countries can currently drive and rent cars for the first 30 days they are in Taiwan with a valid international driver’s license, the Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) said, but added that overseas visitors who stay longer than 30 days need to apply for an international driving permit. In the past, applying for the permit was free, but an administrative fee of NT$150 is to be charged for the permit starting on Monday, the ministry said.
HEALTH
Meal puts dozens in hospital
More than 50 students at a Kaohsiung elementary school have been sent to hospitals due to suspected food poisoning caused by meals provided by the school a day earlier, the Kaohsiung Department of Health said yesterday. Out of about 130 teachers and students who fell ill after eating lunch at Gushan Elementary School in Cishan District (旗山) on Thursday, 52 students were taken to emergency rooms at several hospitals between Thursday evening and yesterday morning, the department said. The suspect meals consisted of braised pork, fish fillets, vegetables and soup, the school said. As some students had complained that the fish fillets tasted bad, the department said that a task force has launched an investigation and taken samples to determine the cause of the food-borne illness. Many of the 52 students have been discharged from the hospitals, the school said.
CRIME
Taiwanese caught in Vietnam
A Taiwanese man was on Wednesday detained by Vietnamese police as part of a drug bust involving the seizure of more than 300kg of heroin in Ho Chi Minh City’s Hoc Mon District, a Vietnamese-language newspaper reported yesterday. Tuoi Tre said on its Web site that the man was identified by Vietnamese media as 33-year-old Taiwanese national Tran Vy, who was arrested with a Vietnamese man when police stopped two vehicles for spot checks. Another Taiwanese suspect is still at large, the newspaper said. A total of 315kg of heroin was discovered in the cars and the men admitted to being on their way to Hoc Mon to deliver the drugs, it said. Citing local police, the newspaper said that another two Taiwanese are wanted for questioning in relation to the case. The men are allegedly part of a drug trafficking ring that has been smuggling narcotics into Kaohsiung, the newspaper said.
TRAVEL
NZ carrier adding flights
Air New Zealand, which resumed direct flights between Auckland and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in November last year, yesterday said that it would add more flights to the route from Oct. 27. Currently flying three round-trip flights on the route per week, the airline said it would add one more between Oct. 27 and Dec. 7, and two more between Dec. 8 and Feb. 23 next year. This would bring the total number of flights to between four and five per week, the carrier said. Air New Zealand expressed confidence in the move as the country’s statistics showed that mutual visits between Taiwan and New Zealand grew 40 percent year-on-year within three months of the launch of the route.
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
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to 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), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition
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