■ Air safety
Singapore pilots to fly again
Singapore's aviation authority will reinstate the licenses of three pilots involved in a deadly crash at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport nearly two years ago, after they complete a performance review, it said yesterday. The three Singapore Airlines pilots "did not contravene any regulation or operational procedures that would require or justify the continued suspension of their licenses," the Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement. Captain Foong Chee Kong, Cyrano Latiff, and Ng Kheng Lang will again be able to fly commercial planes after they undergo a "rigorous program" of medical and psychological tests as well as flight retraining, the statement said. The Oct. 31, 2000, crash killed 83 people.
■ Diplomacy
Taiwan named in funding row
A Costa Rican opposition party asked President Abel Pacheco on Monday about allegations that Taiwan contributed funds to his 2001 election campaign, which would be illegal under the country's Constitution. The Citizens' Action Party asked Pacheco to detail all "economic donations to his campaign both from national business leaders and foreign companies, some of which may be linked to governments of other countries." In a letter to Pacheco, Deputy Humberto Arce said he had "been amazed to hear" claims made public by close former collaborators of Pacheco, that they had heard campaign organizers inquiring over the arrival of funds from Taiwan. Arce also said Pacheco received more than a million dollars in his electoral campaign, which he won in the second round on Apr. 7, having narrowly missed outright victory in February.
■ Politics
KMT submits finance bill
The KMT legislative caucus yesterday introduced its own version of a proposed agriculture finance law that calls for a bigger share of public capitalization in creating a national agriculture bank. The KMT bill also proposes that the credit departments of the farmers' and fishermen's associations run the envisioned bank, an idea that stands in stark contrast with the Cabinet's reform plan for these groups. Under the KMT bill, a national agriculture bank would hold a minimum capitalization of NT$20 billion, with the government contributing a 49 percent share as opposed to the 20 percent stake suggested in the Cabinet's proposal. To that end, the KMT prefers to make existing credit departments of the public farmers' and fishermen's associations de facto executives of the proposed national agriculture bank. The Cabinet has suggested shutting down the troubled cooperatives, skeptical of their professionalism and entrenched ties with local factions.
■ Cross-strait ties
KMT group in Beijing
A group of KMT politicians in Beijing for a seminar on cross-strait relations said yesterday they were trying to tap China's attitude on direct links and the needs of China-based Taiwanese business-people. The KMT guests, including Yao Eng-chi (饒穎奇), former deputy president of the Legislative Yuan, Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭), director of the KMT Department of Mainland Affairs, and KMT Legislators Chu Feng-chih (朱鳳芝), Chen Chien-min (陳健民) and Hung Chao-nan (洪昭南), met with academics and members of the Beijing-based Chinese Culture Development Association for a discussion dubbed "Seminar on Cross-Strait Relations in the New Era." The KMT mission arrived in Beijing last Saturday. They plan to proceed to Shanghai before returning to Taipei.
Staff writer, with agencies
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
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