■ Diplomacy
Paraguay ties firm: MOFA
Diplomatic relations between the Taiwan and Paraguay remain firm and solid, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Richard Shih (石瑞琦) said yesterday. Shih was responding to media reports that China has been lobbying Brazil to pressure Paraguay to switch its diplomatic recognition to Beijing. Shih said the reports were speculative. He said Taiwan-Paraguay relations are in good shape, noting that President Nicanor Duarte just concluded a state visit to Taipei late last month. After his return to Asuncion, Shih said, Duarte told the Paraguayan press that his visit was very fruitful and that the two countries will negotiate and sign a free-trade agreement within a year. Asked whether Paraguay is likely to yield to pressure from its Southern Common Market allies to switch its diplomatic allegiance, Shih said Duarte has reiterated on many public occasions that Paraguay's diplomatic ties with Taipei have contributed much to the country's economic development over the past decades.
■ Child Abuse
Yu speaks out
Premier Yu Shyi-kun issued a directive yesterday on the building of a nationwide information and rescue network for the protection of abused children. Speaking at the Executive Yuan, Yu said his heart went out to children who had been physically and mentally abused or had been deprived of human rights as a result of family crises. Yu instructed government agencies to address the matter by having specialists make field trips to communities and households as a first step toward building a nationwide network to protect youngsters. The premier said authorities must intervene to save mentally and physically abused children from families and institutions where economic, marital or social problems had made their environments hell.
■ Communications
People phone China a lot
China was the top destination last year for international calls placed from Taiwan, followed by the US and the Philippines, according to figures released yesterday by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. The statistics showed that Taiwanese people placed 3.08 billion minutes' worth of international calls last year -- an average of 8.43 million minutes per day, up 42.8 percent from the previous year's level. China was the destination for 0.99 billion minutes' worth of calls, or 32.1 percent of the total, followed by the US at 290 million minutes, the Philippines at 270 million minutes, Hong Kong and Macau at 240 million minutes and Thailand at 210 million minutes. A large number of Filipino and Thai laborers work in the country, contributing to those countries' high rankings.
■ Politics
Chen to fete lawyers
To express his appreciation to nearly 800 lawyers who aided the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the recount of votes cast in the presidential election, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will hold a series of banquets in Taichung, Kaohsiung and Taipei on July 4, 7 and 9, respectively. Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), director of the DPP's Information and Culture Department, announced yesterday that Chen would attend the banquets to thank the lawyers for their efforts in the 9-day recount, which set a record for the largest number of lawyers to be involved in a single legal proceeding.
■ Politics
DPP candidates queried
Questions have been raised about some of the 10 candidates the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)nominated on Tuesday for a Kaohsiung City Council by-election. Five candidates are family members or associates of three former city councilors convicted of election fraud in connection with the election of former City Council speaker Chu An-hsuing (朱安雄). Among the DPP's 10 candidates are Hsiao Yeh-chuan (蕭雅捐), who is the wife of former city councilor Chang Ching-chuan (張清泉). Chang was sentenced to 26 months in prison and expelled from the DPP in the vote-buying scandal. Candidate Chao Li-wen (趙麗文) is the wife of former city councilor Kao Tzeng-ying (高宗英) who was sentenced to a six-month jail term. DPP Legislator Lin Chin-hsing (林進興), who was cleared of charges, arranged for his sister Lin Mei-ling (林美玲) and his aides Lin Wu-chung (林武忠) and Cheng Kuang-feng (鄭光豐) to run in the by-
election. Lin Chin-hsing's ex-wife Chang Wen-hsiu (章玟琇), a former city councilor, was convicted of vote-buying in the speaker-election scandal.
■ Society
Man survives 12-story fall
An elderly man who plum-meted 12 stories to the ground after he fell from his apartment balcony while changing a lightbulb sur-vived with only minor bruises, reports said yesterday. Chang Shih-chi, 68, told cable network CTiTV he had lost his balance after suffering an electric shock, but his fall was broken as he bounced off a canvas awning, electric wiring and
a parked car. "The patient fell from the 12th floor to the ground without suffering major injuries. This is a miracle," said the doctor who treated Chang. TV footage showed Chang walking around a hospital ward in Taichung.
■ Society
Rules eased on spouses
Rules on residence appli-cations by Chinese spouses of Taiwanese have been eased after the Bureau of Immigration agreed to simplify the process, a bureau spokesman said yesterday. In the future, undisputed applications will be approved immediately after being examined by
the bureau, the spokesman said, adding that qualifying documents will not have to
be further processed in a joint screening meeting
and applicants will not have to go through an interview with immigration officials. According to the spokesman, the first joint screening meeting was held May 18 to scrutinize a total of 704 applications. Except for a small number of disputed cases, most of the applica-tions were approved at the meeting, he said.
■ Society
Andy going to rehab
The actor known as Andy (安迪) faces a 21-day drug rehabilitation program starting next Tuesday. Authorities have issued a summons requiring him to report that day to the Shihlin District Prosecutors' Office, from where he will be transferred to the Taipei Detention House's rehabili-tation center in Panchiao. The summons stems from an incident last December in which Andy and his wife were videotaped taking drugs and having sex in a private KTV room. Six suspects who tried to use the video to blackmail the couple have been arrested and indicted. The blackmail attempt led prosecutors to conduct an analysis of Andy's hair, which confirmed that he had taken the drug MDMA (ecstasy). Andy's wife was cleared of having used drugs.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
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