■ Politics
KMT primary heats up
Heating up competition within the pan-blue camp for Taipei County commissioner, former minister of justice Liao Cheng-hao (廖正豪) registered yesterday to enter the party's preliminaries for the seat. Liao said that he had restored his party membership a month ago, and will have the necessary 5,000 signatures needed to qualify for the preliminaries. There are five other competitors: KMT legislators Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) and Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋); Wang Lin-huei (王玲惠), head of the Taipei County Federation of Chinese Business Women, and Sanchung Mayor Lee Chien-lung (李乾龍). Chou created a scandal last week when he left the People First Party and registered with the KMT in order to enter the race.
■ Crime
Five men jailed in Vietnam
Five Taiwanese men were given jail terms ranging from two to nine years for using fake travelers checks in Vietnam. Lee Yao-yu, Wong Chi-feng, Chang Yi-yu, Liu Che-an and Su Wen-hsien used 21 fake checks to buy around US$95,000 worth of gold jewelry, diamonds and laptops last July, said Bui Kim Dung, an official of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court. "Lee and Wong were both sentenced to nine years in jail for leading the fraud," Dung said. "Chang and Liu were given jail terms of eight years, while Su Wen-hsien got two years." The counterfeit checks were made in Taiwan and the five men were part of a gang who had been passing off fake checks there. The men were arrested after they had been using the fake checks for several days.
■ Diplomacy
Greater outreach urged
Taiwan should develop the ability to establish an agenda at major events such as the APEC forum to boost its influence, Vice Premier Wu Rong-i (吳榮義) said yesterday. Wu made the remarks while attending an APEC operations seminar sponsored by the Taiwan APEC Study Center. Wu noted that APEC and the WTO are two international organizations that Taiwan participates in, and that the APEC leaders' meeting is the only venue where its officials can get together with world leaders and officials. He said that no publicity drive could be more effective to demonstrate the nation's sovereignty than Taiwanese leaders mingling with other leaders. But he said that the agenda of the APEC meeting has been affected by the changing international political and economic situation, and the government has to keep abreast of the latest developments to work out how Taiwan can increase its presence.
■ Architecture
Urban planners visit Stuttgart
A delegation headed by Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) visited Stuttgart on Sunday to inspect the city's urban planning and greening project. Stuttgart, which used to be an overcrowded, overdeveloped industrial city, has undergone a major transformation in recent years under a municipal government "greening" plan to make the city into a European commercial and industrial center with a high-quality living environment to attract people to live, work and invest. Yang praised the city for its greening efforts, saying during the one-day visit that Kaohsiung County can learn from it in planning a university town in Yenchao Township and an urban park at the site of the former Weiwu military barracks.
■ Crime
Bounty on forgers raised
The reward for information leading to the arrest or indictment of forgers has been raised to NT$500,000 from NT$200,000, according to the Intellectual Property Office under the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The office urged people to use a toll-free hotline (080-001-6597) to report forgers. An official said that Web sites are replacing shops as the most popular places for selling forged products.
■ Crime
Four nabbed for forgery
Four men were arrested yesterday for producing fake Microsoft certificates of authenticity. Computers with the fake stickers were first found in Australia last July, and Australian police tracked the maker down to this country. Acting on a tip-off from Australian officials, Taipei police raided a workshop in Sungshan, Taipei City, yesterday. Four people were arrested along with 33 sheets of a wide variety of fake certificates for Windows 98, Windows XP and other software.
■ Diplomacy
Troupe performs overseas
The Ming Hwa Yuan Taiwanese Opera troupe is scheduled to perform in Bangkok this weekend to celebrate the 55th anniversary of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit's marriage and the 50th birthday of Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorne. At the invitation of the Thai government, the opera troupe, founded in 1929, will present its most popular play, The Living Buddha Chikung. The award-winning play, which premiered in 1983, features Buddhist truths, principles and practices. It is perfect for the play to be performed in a Buddhist country, the head of the troupe, Chen Sheng-fu (陳勝福), said yesterday.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
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