■ Crime
Fake wine suspects nabbed
The Tainan District Prosecutor's Office recently cracked a criminal ring that produced and sold some 240,000 bottles of fake red wine over the past two years, prosecutors said yesterday. Two suspects have been detained, the prosecutors said. The prosecutors and investigators searched several sites related to a food company and a winery in Kaohsiung and Tainan counties and seized counterfeit sorghum liquor and the fake red wine. The winery used grape juice, red wine extract and flavoring to produce the fake wine, which it sold to another company for NT$70 to NT$80 per bottle. The second company sold it for NT$120 to NT$150 per bottle, according to the prosecutors, who added that most of the estimated 240,000 bottles had been sold to catering services and had probably already been consumed.
■ Crime
Kaohsiung flights commence
A China Airlines Airbus A300 took off at around noon yesterday heading from Kaohsiung International Airport to Shanghai, marking the first Lunar New Year charter flight between the southern port city and China's largest city this year. This year's special direct cross-strait Lunar New Year charter flight services, which commenced on Tuesday, will last through to the end of the holidays early next month. Six carriers from each side of the Taiwan Strait will provide passengers with 192 special charter flights during the Lunar New Year holidays, up by 48 flights from the previous year's level.
■ Health
Center issues rabies warning
Taiwanese who are planning to visit China during the Lunar New Year holidays were warned yesterday about the risk of contracting rabies -- an infectious disease that killed 182 people in China last month. The Center for Disease Control called for potential visitors to China to avoid contact with dogs or other animals in order to avoid catching rabies, a disease caused by a virus found in the saliva of infected animals and transmitted to humans by bites or possibly by contamination of an open cut. According to a report released recently by the Chinese Ministry of Health, 217 people were bitten by dogs or other animals that were infected by the rabies virus across China last month. Of the total, 182, or more than 80 percent, died.
■ Media
No approval for BCC deal
The National Communications Commission yesterday refused approval of the Broadcasting Corporation of China's (BCC) share transfer to four companies apparently affiliated with the UFO Network, of which political commentator Jaw Shao-kong (趙少康) is the former president. It asked the BCC to fulfill several "essential requirements," including returning two radio frequencies that had been assigned to the corporation to launch a propaganda campaign against China. The commission also demands that the BCC hold a shareholder meeting to appoint a new board of directors and chairman as soon as the share transfer has been completed. Following this, another application to transfer shares must be submitted. Jaw, who was recently appointed BCC chairman, responded to the ruling yesterday by saying that the requests by the commission were too strict. He said that the commission should show more concern about the Liberty Times Group's interest in buying shares from Taiwan Television Company and some other media firms.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT