■ Crime
Cross-border seminar held
Officials, academics and experts from several countries gathered in Taipei yesterday for a seminar on cross-border management and cooperation in crime fighting. The one-day seminar was organized by the ministries of foreign affairs and education, the National Police Administration, the Directorate General of Customs and the Bureau of Immigration and other agencies. Among the participants were Stuart Sampson, from the US Drug Enforcement Administration; Xuan Thanh, deputy director of Vietnam's Bureau of Investigation and Anti-Smuggling, representatives from Indonesia, Belgium and South Korea and several Japanese legal scholars. Among the Taiwanese delegates were senior law-enforcement officers and criminologists from Central Police University.
■ Diplomacy
Chen to receive award
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will be decorated by the speaker of the Central American Parliament, Fabio Gadea Mantilla, in Taipei next week in recognition of his efforts to cement ties between Taiwan and Central America, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Gadea and a 10-member delegation are scheduled to arrive in Taipei on Monday for a five-day visit. At the decoration ceremony, to be held at the Presidential Office, Gadea will also be decorated by Chen, ministry officials said. The Central American Parliament is a political institution, headquartered in Guatemala, that is devoted to the integration of the Central American countries. It currently has 20 directly-elected deputies.
■ Culture
Panamanian bazaar a hit
Panamanian children are learning to write Chinese calligraphy with a brush and to make Chinese handicrafts such as Chinese knots and paper-cuts with the assistance of Taiwanese expatriates living in Panama at a bazaar organized by the office of Panama's first lady. The Taiwan Embassy in Panama sponsored the three-day bazaar that ends today to celebrate Panama's annual Children's Day, which falls on the third Sunday of July. Agricultural products and processed food made by the Taiwan Technical Mission to Panama were on sale at the event, while Taiwanese businesspeople living in Panama donated funds. Ambassador Hou Ping-fu (侯平福) said that the embassy is the only foreign diplomatic mission involved in the event. Impressed by the Panamanian government's enthusiasm for children's welfare, Taiwan's government is very willing to do whatever it can to assist its ally in this regard, he said.
■ Politics
Chen open to talks
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is willing to meet with opposition leaders to discuss national affairs if the opportunity were to arise, Presidential Office Secretary-General Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday. He said Chen's plan to meet with opposition leaders has not changed, but because the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been preoccupied with its leadership election, the matter has been shelved for now. Yu said that after today's election, there will be a window of opportunity for inter-party reconciliation and cooperation, because the new KMT leader will have less of a historical burden and will have new plans for the party's future. Chen would welcome the chance to meet with opposition leaders, whether they be People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) or the new KMT leader, Yu said.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
Taiwan is bracing for a political shake-up as a majority of directly elected lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) face the prospect of early removal from office in an unprecedented wave of recall votes slated for July 26 and Aug. 23. The outcome of the public votes targeting 26 KMT lawmakers in the next two months — and potentially five more at later dates — could upend the power structure in the legislature, where the KMT and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) currently hold a combined majority. After denying direct involvement in the recall campaigns for months, the
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