■ Crime
Yunlin speaker free on bail
Yunlin County Council Speaker Chen Ching-hsiu (陳清秀) was released on NT$600,000 bail and banned from travelling outside the country early yesterday morning. Chen was trans-ferred to the Yunlin District Prosecutors Office for interrogation after prose-cutors raided his residence on Thursday. He allegedly helped legislative candidate Chang Sho-wen (張碩文) by treating nearly 200 voters and supporters to a free dinner party on Nov. 5. Yunlin Chief Prosecutor Lin Chih-feng (林志峰) sum-moned 13 witnesses in the case but none of them was detained after questioning.
■ Crime
Prosecutors probe anchor
The Taipei District Prose-cutors Office yesterday said that TV anchor Chen Sheng-hung (陳勝鴻) may have violated privacy regulations. A woman who identified herself as Chen's former girlfriend has complained that Chen videotaped their intimate encounters without her consent. Taipei District Prosecutors Office Spokes-man Lin Bang-liang (林邦樑) said prosecutors have begun an investigation. Lin said the prosecutors will ask the woman to provide the video footage. She said she acci-dentally discovered the video footage and is worried that the tape will be made public someday now that she and Chen are no longer a couple.
■ Aviation
Seoul routes allocated
The Civil Aeronautics Administration allocated Taiwan-South Korea pas-senger services between six airlines yesterday. The Taipei-Seoul route was assigned to China Airlines and EVA Airways and the Kaohsiung-Seoul line was given to UNI Airways and Mandarin Airlines. Far East Air Transport and TransAsia Airways got the Taipei-Jeju route while the Taipei-Busan line went to TransAsia Airways and UNI Airways. The airlines must file an application for an air-route certificate within a month and launch services within four months of the certifi-cate being issued.
■ Entertainment
CBS program lauded
A radio program produced by the Central Broadcasting System (CBS) has been rated as one of the top 10 English-language radio programs in the world for a second time by Passport to World Band Radio, an international short-wave-broadcasting maga-zine. "The Beauty of Tradi-tional Chinese Music," a program to introduce traditional Chinese music, was rated as a top 10 English-language radio show this year by the magazine. CBS chairman Lin Feng-cheng (林峰正) said the station will continue to produce quality programs. The program was named as a top 10 show in 2001.
■ Diplomacy
European Parliament hailed
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday welcomed a decision by the European Parliament to maintain its arms sales embargo against China. Ministry spokesman Michel Lu (呂慶龍) was referring to a vote by the parliament on Wednesday to continue the ban on arms sales to Beijing which was imposed shortly after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Lu said the decision shows that the EU still thinks that China has not done enough to improve its protection of human rights. The parliament said the arms embargo should continue until the EU has adopted a code of conduct providing legal restraints on arms exports, and until China takes concrete measures to improve its human rights situation.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
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