SOCIETY
Taipei Prison’s festive party
More than 300 foreign inmates at Taipei Prison were given a taste of Christmas yesterday when the Taiwan Expatriates Caring Committee and 65 volunteers threw them an early Christmas party. The volunteers included people from Europe, the US and Southeast Asia as well as clergymen from various religions who have shown concern for the psychological health of the inmates. Prison warden Fang Tzu-chieh (方子傑) expressed his appreciation to volunteers in contributing to Taiwan’s correctional education.Taipei Prison said it currently houses 342 foreign nationals from 25 countries, with the oldest being 75. Most of the inmates from Europe and the US are in jail for narcotics offenses, and several of them are serving life sentences, it said, adding that inmates from Southeast Asian countries were primarily convicted on murder, bodily injury and narcotics charges.
CRIME
Three admit bribery charges
Three men who conspired with former National Fire Agency head Huang Chi-min (黃季敏) in accepting bribes have already handed over their illegal gains of NT$17.71 million (US$608,500), the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The office said Luo Tsai-chuan (羅財全), a former commissioner at the National Fire Agency, returned NT$1.3 million on Wednesday, while Huang’s elder brother, Huang Wen-chou (黃文宙), and businessman Wang Ching-wu (王經武) each returned NT$8,206,000 the following day. The three admitted to helping Huang Chi-min obtain kickbacks from businesspeople who won contracts. Huang Chi-min, who served as the national fire-fighting chief from 2002 to 2009, was reported to have awarded agency procurement contracts to businesspeople in return for bribes.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
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