CRIME
Major charged with spying
An air force major and a karaoke club owner have been charged with disclosing military secrets to China, prosecutors in Greater Kaohsiung said yesterday. Major Hao Chih-hsiung (郝志雄), who served at the air force base in Pingtung County, and businessman Wan Tsung-lin (萬宗琳) are accused of selling China classified information about Taiwan’s E-2K early warning aircraft. Their alleged contact with China was discovered in June last year during a separate espionage investigation and they were detained in September last year after prosecutors found that the two men had money in their bank accounts from an unknown source, according to the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office’s Kaohsiung Branch. Prosecutors said Hao was paid between NT$300,000 (US$9,899.68) and NT$400,000 for his efforts, prosecutors allege.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Philippines to get relief
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines will deliver about NT$22.38 million (US$738,500) in donations to the Philippine government for relief and reconstruction in the wake of last year’s Typhoon Haiyan at a ceremony later this year, officials said.Last year, public and private donors in Taiwan gave more than NT$300 million in supplies and other aid to the Philippines after the deadly typhoon struck on Nov. 8, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The amount included a US$200,000 cash donation by the government, the ministry said. In the weeks after the storm ripped through the Philippines, a Taiwanese Navy vessel delivered 530 tonnes of supplies to the neighboring country, while military transport planes delivered 150 tonnes of supplies.
DISASTER
Another ship to aid search
The Chengkung-class navy frigate and two Coast Guard Administration ships that were dispatched to help with the international search for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner were scheduled to arrive today in an area of the South China Sea where the Boeing 777-200 possibly went missing. A fourth frigate, a Lafayette-class vessel, was also sent yesterday. All four are expected to operate in the South China Sea for four to five days. Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) said Malaysia has agreed to allow the vessels to dock in one of its ports to take on fuel, water and food. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared from radar screens in the early hours of Saturday morning after taking off from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing.
SOCIETY
Nurse accused over picture
A nurse at a hospital in Taitung is being accused of violating a patient’s privacy after reportedly posting photographs of a heart surgery patient on Facebook. In a story published yesterday, the Chinese-language Apple Daily quoted an official from the Taiwan Healthcare Reform Foundation as condemning the act, which he said demonstrates a lack of empathy and respect for patients’ privacy. Although the photographs were taken down within hours of the controversy erupting, the Taitung branch of Mackay Memorial Hospital said it has instructed the nurse to submit a report on the incident and is considering punishment for her. According to the hospital’s initial investigation, the photographs depicting the patient intubated and covered with bandages were taken by the nurse with a cellphone after a four-hour surgery on Tuesday. The nurse was reported as saying she was only trying to share the joy of the patient’s “rebirth.”
ENVIRONMENT
Agency mulls water fee hike
The Water Resources Agency said on Wednesday that it is mulling whether to require industries that use a lot of water to pay higher rates during dry seasons to encourage conservation, as parts of southern Taiwan take measures to tighten water supplies. The agency is planning to draft new laws to double the rates businesses will have to pay for water once they exceed a certain amount, said Wang Yi-feng (王藝峰), an agency section chief. The new regulations are aimed at encouraging investment in water-efficient equipment and will target heavy users before expanding to cover households, Wang said. China charges 10 times the regular water fees to businesses that use a lot of water, Wang said. The agency is hoping to produce the draft this year and get it passed into law in the next two years, Wang said.
CHARITY
Mobile firm sponsors films
Taiwan Mobile Co on Wednesday launched a promotional event on YouTube for three movie shorts sponsored by the carrier in a bid to increase social awareness of disadvantaged people. The operator allocated a budget of NT$350,000 last year for each of the films, which are based on true stories from the First Children’s Development Center, the Formosa Cancer Foundation and the Mennonite Social Welfare Foundation, Taiwan Mobile Foundation secretary-general Josephine Juan (阮淑祥) said. Taiwan Mobile will donate NT$1 for every view of the movies on YouTube, up to a maximum of NT$100,000 for each film, she said. “Taiwan’s nonprofit organizations generally lack the ability to produce digital applications,” Juan said. “If we can help them make the first step toward digital applications, their ability to raise funds should be greatly improved.”
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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