SOCIETY
Matsu EasyCards available
Taipei EasyCard Corp has cooperated with Taipei’s Songshan Ciyou Temple to issue 5,000 EasyCards that were “blessed” by Matsu, the goddess of sea worshiped in the temple, as an effort to extend the card’s popularity. The “Matsu Blessing EasyCard” is a third of the size of a regular EasyCard, and comes with a talisman. The NT$390 EasyCard sets will be available for presale at FamilyMart convenience stores starting today. Corporation director Chang Chia-sheng (張家生) said the Matsu EasyCards are printed with the goddess’ icon, and were placed above the incense burner as a ritual to receive blessing from the deity. According to the temple’s chairman, Chen Yu-feng (陳玉峰), the temple ordered special-edition EasyCards with Matsu’s icon on the cover and has given them to volunteers and students as gifts, and the company later decided to work with the temple in issuing Matsu EasyCards because of the popularity of such cards.
CRIME
Police seize gold ingots
Police and prosecutors have seized more than US$3.8 million worth of gold ingots in a probe into a money-laundering ring, authorities said yesterday. The ring, run by two men, was accused of recruiting homeless people in central Taiwan to open at least 19 dummy jewelry companies since 2006 to launder money from abroad through the sale of gold, a prosecutor said. Various sizes of gold ingots weighing 64kg in total were seized on Wednesday in one of the biggest cases of its kind, she said. The two men and 26 others were questioned for their alleged role in the money-laundering operations. Media reports said the clients were mainly from China and Hong Kong.
TRAVEL
Foreign visitor arrivals soar
Foreign visitor arrivals during the first 10 months of this year surged by 23.2 percent compared with the same period of last year, setting an all-time-high, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday. About 5.94 million foreign visitor arrivals were recorded between January and October, with the volume in October alone posting a year-on-year growth of 15.1 percent to 610,000, the bureau said. The large increase, especially in recent months, could be attributed to an influx of Chinese tourists who visited during China’s Sept. 30 to Oct. 7 National Day holiday, the bureau said. Meanwhile, a recovery in travel exchanges with Japan was seen after tension between the two sides was reduced in the territorial dispute over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) earlier this year, the bureau said.
SOCIETY
British engineer dies
A British engineer who was in charge of the annual maintenance of the nuclear power plant in Pingtung was found dead near the facility on Wednesday, Pingtung police said. Thomas Edward Foottit, 34, an employee of Alstom, a France-based company that specializes in the manufacture of transport and energy infrastructure, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Based on preliminary investigations, police said Foottit died from head injuries sustained when he fell off a bridge and into a trail by the river not far from the nuclear power plant. Witnesses told police that they saw Foottit walking toward the No. 415 Bridge in Xiaowan at about 3am on Wednesday and he appeared to be drunk. Police said there was a 60cm wide crevice near the bridge and Foottit apparently tripped and fell into the river 12m below.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
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