■ POLITICS
MOFA touts youth diplomats
Ex-legislator indicted
Taipei District prosecutors yesterday indicted former independent legislator Lo Fu-chu (羅福助) and others over his alleged involvement in a land digging and construction scandal. Prosecutors charged Lo and 10 other businessmen from construction and investment companies with violating the Water and Land Preservation Act (水土保持法). Lo allegedly ordered workers to dig up land in a mountainous area in Xindian (新店), Taipei County, over five or six years and flatten hills to create 15 baseball fields. Lo was suspected of illegally selling the land and applying with the local government to build apartments, prosecutors said. Prosecutors opened an investigation after receiving reports from informants last September. They questioned Lo and other witnesses and searched his residence. He is currently barred from leaving the country.
■ TOURISM
Alishan visits increase
The Alishan Forest Recreation Park, founded more than 30 years ago, is expecting its millionth visitor of this year very soon, the Forestry Bureau said yesterday. Since its opening in 1976, the park has attracted between 600,000 and 994,000 visitors per year, but has never attracted more than 1 million in a single year. Forestry Bureau officials said the bureau has prepared prizes for the millionth visitor, as well as for the following 10 groups. Visitor numbers to the park have been boosted by Chinese tourists, who have made up to 10,000 visits to the park each day since restrictions on Chinese tourist visits to Taiwan were lifted last year.
■ MILITARY
Ministry cancels car perk
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) has stopped assigning chauffeured vehicles to retired generals on a regular basis, military spokesman Yu Sy-tue (虞思祖) said yesterday, in response to complaints from the Control Yuan. Since June 30, the ministry has recalled all vehicles and chauffeurs that were previously assigned to the generals, Yu said. The generals are no longer on active duty but serve as advisers to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and are reserve generals who can be called upon to serve in emergencies, including in times of war. According to the Control Yuan’s investigation, two defense ministry vehicles were assigned on a long-term basis to serve five such generals. Their family members also used the cars, the investigation had found. This violated a rule forbidding cars being used for transporting individuals other than officials holding top administrative positions, the Control Yuan said. Yu said yesterday the MND has already corrected the mistake, adding that from July 1, the vehicles have been reassigned.
■ ANIMALS
Trapped husky rescued
A husky trapped on the roof of a building for several days has been rescued and is awaiting adoption, a spokesman for Animal Rescue Team Taiwan said yesterday in Kaohsiung, urging dog owners not to abandon their animals. The dog was seen on Saturday on top of a corrugated steel structure near the Guanyinshan Scenic Area in Kaohsiung County by a passerby who called for help online, alerting the team that eventually rescued the three-year-old dog four days later. Ni Chao-cheng (倪兆成), who led the rescue team, said the 18kg dog was suffering from dehydration and low blood sugar but recovered well after being given a nutrient solution by a vet. Anyone interested in adopting the husky should contact the rescue team.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS