WEATHER
Mercury to drop again
Temperatures around the nation could drop again starting on Friday due to the arrival of a cold air mass from China, the Central Weather Bureau forecast yesterday. The mercury could fall by about 2oC on Friday and Saturday, before rising on Sunday, when the cold air mass is expected to weaken, the bureau said. Day and night temperatures around the country may vary by up to 10oC, especially in the central and southern areas, from today until Dec. 9, it added. Daily highs during that period are expected to reach 23oC to 24oC in the north, northeast and east, while climbing to 26oC and 27oC in the central and southern regions, the bureau said.
TRAVEL
Bangkok travel alert issued
The government on Monday issued a yellow alert for travel to Bangkok and its surrounding areas, warning Taiwanese to reconsider visiting Thailand’s capital as anti-government protests continued. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged Taiwanese planning to visit Bangkok to be vigilant about their personal safety, ministry spokeswoman Anna Kao (高安) said at a regular news conference yesterday. A “gray” travel alert for Thailand has been in place since early last month, as anti-government protesters in the capital tried to storm Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s office, demanding that she step down amid claims that her government is controlled by her elder brother, ousted former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, foreign media reports said. Kao also urged citizens not to visit crowded areas in Bangkok and avoid wearing yellow and red shirts, which are the colors donned by the fighting political factions in Thailand.
POLITICS
Legislature votes on CEC
The Legislative Yuan yesterday voted to retain Central Election Commission (CEC) Chairperson Chang Po-ya (張博雅) and Vice Chairperson Liu Yi-chou (劉義周) in their posts, and approved four nominees to the commission. After legislators cast their ballots along party lines, Chang, 71, and Liu both won another four-year term by a margin of 65-42, with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers endorsing the Executive Yuan’s nominees and the opposition parties voting against them. The Democratic Progressive Party caucus said it voted against the nominations because President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had used the commission as a political tool during the so-called “September strife” and because the candidates did not include representatives from the opposition.
ENTERTAINMENT
Barbie Hsu is pregnant
Actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) — also known as Big S — announced late on Monday that she and her husband are expecting a baby, confirming recent rumors that she is pregnant. Hsu’s statement sparked a media frenzy since she and her husband, Chinese entrepreneur Wang Xiaofei (汪小菲), are well-known in Taiwan and China, and because the high-profile couple have reportedly wanted a baby since tying the knot in 2011. Hsu, the elder sister of TV hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣, better known as Little S), married Wang in a lavish wedding in China. The 37-year-old actress became a household name in Taiwan in the 1990s as a member of the duo girl group S.O.S with Dee Hsu, but is best known for her subsequent role in the TV drama Meteor Garden (流星花園).
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
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
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
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