■LAW
Chiu Yi found innocent
Taipei District Court yesterday found Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) not guilty in a slander suit filed by former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷). Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) told a court hearing in February last year that former Bureau of Investigation director-general Yeh Sheng-mao (葉盛茂) told him that Hsieh wired NT$1billion (US$30 million) to Singapore through his family. Asked to comment on the remark, Chiu told reporters that Hsieh wired the fund overseas through his wife’s family, and that it must have been dirty money. The district court ruled that Chiu’s remark was related to corruption and money laundering, which were hot issues at the time and they could be discussed in public, so it found Chiu not guilty. Hsieh can appeal the ruling to the Taiwan High Court.
■POPULATION
Ministry wants more babies
The Ministry of the Interior is offering NT$1 million (US$31,000) for a catchy slogan to help boost the nation’s dwindling birth rate, one of the world’s lowest. “We are seeking a creative slogan that would appeal to the public and make everybody want to have children,” an interior ministry statement said. Authorities have offered various incentives in an unsuccessful bid to boost birth rates amid growing concern that a severe manpower shortage will trigger social and economic problems. The birth rate stood at 8.29 births per 1,000 people last year, the ministry said. That compares with a global average of more than 20 births per 1,000 people, according to UN statistics.
■AVIATION
Runways to be lengthened
The runways at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport will be lengthened to allow for the landing of the Airbus A380 and other big aircraft, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said on Monday. The CEPD approved the project submitted by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications to remodel facilities at the airport in line with an ambitious “Taoyuan Aerotropolis” plan. The Taoyuan Aerotropolis plan — set to be completed in 2020 — involves the expansion of existing airport terminals, the establishment of an aerospace industrial park and special zones for cargo, passenger and logistics services. Under the project, scheduled to be completed by mid-2014 at a cost of NT$10.7 billion (US$310 million), the length of runways and taxiways will be extended to allow for the landing of big planes, including Airbus 380s, the CEPD said.
■MILITARY
More missiles in China
Andrei Pinkov, of the Toronto-based Kanwa Asian Defence Monthly, has said S300PMU2 long-range surface-to-air missiles have been deployed at Longtian military airport in China’s Fujian Province. Pinkov said satellite images show that eight launch vehicles for the Russian-model S300PMU2 missiles, which have a range of 200km, are now stationed at the Longtian base. The base also has S300PMU1 missiles that are launched from vehicles made in Belarus and have a range of 150km. The S300PMU2 rockets are guided by 30N6E2 radars that can simultaneously track 100 targets within a 350km range. Also available are 64N6E2 search radars that can seek out 300 airborne targets at the same time, within a range of 300km. The system can guide 72 missiles to attack 36 airborne targets, with a system reaction time of between seven and 11 seconds, the report said.
GREATER NUMBER: The sorties might have been a response to the US and the EU expressing concern on Friday over China’s ‘provocations’ in the Taiwan Strait Twenty-five Chinese military aircraft and four naval ships were detected around Taiwan from 6am Saturday to 6am yesterday, including eight airplanes that had crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait and another two that entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft that entered Taiwan’s southwestern ADIZ were a Y-8 anti-submarine plane and a BZK-005 uncrewed aerial vehicle, the Ministry of National Defense said. The aircraft that flew across the median line include two Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets, four J-16 multipurpose fighters and two J-10 jets, the ministry’s official Web site showed. Taiwan’s armed forces monitored the
Mask easing: Teachers are allowed to take their masks off while lecturing indoors, but students should keep theirs on, as COVID-19 measures ease this week The Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday released new on-campus COVID-19 prevention guidelines, stating that masks can be taken off while exercising, singing, dancing, performing, taking photographs, dining, drinking, video and voice recording, hosting events, presenting speeches and lecturing outdoors. Large outdoor events organized by schools should comply with the mask regulations issued by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), it added. The new guidelines came into effect yesterday, and people in Taiwan are no longer required to wear masks outdoors for the first time since May 19 last year. The CECC announced the easing of the mask mandate on Monday, adding that it
LUNAR NEW YEAR PEAK: Taiwanese who are in China should get vaccinated and consider returning early, as infection rates are expected to increase, the CECC said China faces five major problems once COVID-19 begins spreading there, with a peak in infections likely during the Lunar New Year holidays, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), said yesterday. Wang wrote on Facebook that according to the center’s data, the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in China is worth noting, as the new Omicron subvariants BF.7 and BA.5.2 spreading in China are highly infectious and are more transmissible than the previously dominating Omicron subvariants. “The virus cannot be eliminated even under China’s strict control measures,” he wrote. “Its policy
‘SEXUAL ASSAULT’: Taipei prosecutors said that cooperation agreements between Taiwan and the Czech Republic grant Czech officials protection against prosecution The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday reaffirmed that it would not charge a Czech official with sexual assault because he is protected by diplomatic immunity. The office released a statement saying it has verified that the man works for the Czech Economic and Cultural Office Taipei’s foreign affairs corps and is thereby protected from criminal prosecution. A foreign graduate student in Taiwan had filed a complaint alleging that the section head of the Czech Economic and Trade Section had sexually assaulted her on April 21 last year. The woman said the Czech official had invited her to his home and then forced her
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