■ SOCIETY
Refugees obtain residency
Seventy-eight Tibetan refugees who had overstayed their visas have been granted resident status in Taiwan, the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission said yesterday. Of the total, 40 have received work permits, it said. The commission is still reviewing the applications of the rest, adding that it would provide them with services such as job-matching, emergency aid, medical care and counseling. Amendments to the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法) passed in January provide that stateless people from India and Nepal who entered Taiwan on fake passports between May 21, 1999, and Dec. 31, 2007, and Tibetan refugees who have overstayed their time in Taiwan are eligible to apply for residency certificates. The law was amended after more than 100 Tibetan refugees in Taiwan staged a sit-in protest in December asking the government to grant them asylum.
■ CULTURE
Wu mulls candidates: Su
Executive Yuan Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) yesterday declined to answer whether Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) had appointed Taipei City Government Research, Development and Evaluation Commission Director-General Emile Sheng (盛治仁) as minister of cultural affairs after the incumbent, Huang Pi-twan (黃碧端), tendered her resignation last month. Su said Wu had been talking to possible candidates. “Anyone who can serve the cultural sector and effectively integrate opinions within the sector is a suitable candidate,” Su said. At a separate setting, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) voiced his support for Sheng, saying that Sheng’s experience in organizing the Deaflympics in September should prepare him for the new task in the ministry. “Sheng has good connections with people in cultural and arts circles after organizing the Deaflympics, and I believe he will do well in the ministry,” Hau said.
■ CRIME
Men nabbed over drugs
Aviation police inspectors arrested two men for attempting to smuggle in 6kg of the drug ketamine at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday. Police said the suspects — both Taiwanese nationals — disguised the drug as an insulating agent. They tried to ship the drug into Taiwan from Malaysia as part of a consignment of living coral fish. The two men have been taken to the Taoyuan District Prosecutors' Office for further questioning, police said. Under Taiwan's laws, individuals who produce, transport and sell “category three” banned drugs like ketamine are subject to a jail sentence of at least five years and a maximum fine of NT$5 million (US$153,600).
■ CULTURE
Master puppets lost in fire
A region that takes pride in its puppetry lost between 400 and 500 of its best pieces to a fire, leaving just one major collection, county officials said yesterday. The fire, which is under investigation, burned most of the large, ornate, one-of-a-kind puppets in a warehouse in Huwei Township (虎尾), Yunlin County, officials said. The blaze spared only a few that had been taken out for a performance. “This is a big part of the county's culture, so we value its survival,” a county government official said. “Each puppet may have had only one or two likenesses, so there's no way to replicate them.” Local media called the fire a “burial” and listed the names of the more famous puppets that were lost in the fire. Officials said the county had planned to promote puppetry via films and a new museum to draw international interest.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
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