■TRANSPORTATION
EasyCards support tennis
The Taipei EasyCard Corp yesterday celebrated the issue of 20 million EasyCards by presenting 300 sets of a special edition EasyCard featuring tennis player Lu Yen-hsun (盧彥勳) for a charity sale. The company began issuing EasyCards in 2002, and expanded its usage from just a MRT and bus fare card to an electronic wallet in April. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and other guests at the celebration hosted an auction of five sets of the special-edition EasyCard, raising NT$1.01 million (US$31,800). That money, along with the proceeds of the 300 sets, will be given to Lu to fund his training. Lu made an appearance via video to thank his supporters. Last month he became the first Taiwanese to make it to the fourth round of the singles at Wimbledon. The special EasyCard costs NT$1,000. Details are available at www.rendylu.url.tw.
■POLITICS
Kaohsiung concert planned
A Chinese music concert will be held at the Kaohsiung National Stadium as one of the 10 activities celebrating the Republic of China’s centennial next year, Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) said yesterday. Siew, who chairs the Centenary Celebration Preparation Committee, said Chinese artists from all over the world will participate in the Nov. 12 concert. Committee members met at the Weiwuying Center for the Arts Preparation Office in Kaohsiung to exchange ideas with local artists and tourism groups about the celebration. Siew said it was time to transform the greater Kaohsiung region into an arts and culture area. The Weiwuying center, which was used by the military prior to the 1980s, will serve as a hub to integrate artistic resources in southern Taiwan, he said.
■CRIME
KMT ex-legislator indicted
Former KMT legislator Kwan Yuk-noan (關沃暖) was indicted on a corruption charge yesterday, accused of embezzling payments for legislative aides. Prosecutors requested a sentence of 12 years in prison, saying that Kwan has not shown remose for what he had done. Kwan served as a legislator-at-large representing overseas compatriots from 1998 to 2004. Taipei prosecutors said Kwan allegedly asked his former legislative aide Cheng Fang-kuo (鄭方國) to collect seven people’s names for him and claimed a total of NT$5,687,551 in payments for legislative aides. Kwan yesterday said he was innocent, adding that such activity was common practice in the legislature. Former KMT legislator Wu Cherng-dean (吳成典) was indicted by the Kinmen Prosecutors Office in 2008 on similar charges. His case is pending in the Kinmen District Court.
■CRIME
Mislabeled clothing seized
About 14,000 garments carrying “Made in Taiwan” labels that were actually made in China were confiscated during a raid on a Chiayi City warehouse on Thursday. Acting on a tip-off, female investigators from the Chiayi City branch of the Bureau of Investigation posed as customers of a hair salon and discovered the salon was selling Chinese-made clothing with the MIT label, deputy division chief Chang You-jen (張尤仁) said. Chang said police believe the husband of the salon owner, surnamed Chen (陳), was the mastermind of the operation. Chen is suspected of importing low-cost Chinese apparel and having workers replace the “Made in China” labels with “Made in Taiwan” ones before selling the clothing under the “Wuge” brand. The clothes cost between NT$100 and NT$200 per item, but sold for twice to three times to distributors around the country, Chang said.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
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