GOVERNMENT
President hit by foam board
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was yesterday hit by a falling board while addressing an event in Taoyuan, but was unharmed. The accident occurred at a ground-breaking ceremony to inaugurate work on a social housing project. As Tsai was speaking on the stage, the board, part of the backdrop, fell down and hit the president on the head. Security guards immediately straightened the board, which was reportedly made of lightweight polystyrene foam, as a surprised Tsai quickly resumed her speech. Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said the incident was likely caused by organizers’ failure to properly fasten the board to its support. The president was not injured and the organizers have apologized, he said.
CRIME
Spain arrests 47 for fraud
Forty-seven Taiwanese have been arrested in Madrid for their alleged involvement in telecom fraud, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday. A group of eight Taiwanese had already been arrested on suspicion of telecom fraud, and the ministry was notified by Spanish authorities on Wednesday last week that another 39 were arrested on similar charges. News reports said Spanish police raided more than 10 locations last week after months of investigation and arrested nearly 240 Chinese and Taiwanese fraud suspects. The ministry said Taiwanese were also involved in telephone fraud in the cities of Barcelona and Alicante, but Taiwan’s representative office in Spain was still working with Spanish authorities to determine the exact numbers involved. The ministry said it has instructed the representative office to form a task force to work with Spanish police and prosecutors, and help Taiwanese suspects and their families.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
MINOR DISRUPTION: The outage affected check-in and security screening, while passport control was done manually and runway operations continued unaffected The main departure hall and other parts of Terminal 2 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport lost power on Tuesday, causing confusion among passengers before electricity was fully restored more than an hour later. The outage, the cause of which is still being investigated, began at about midday and affected parts of Terminal 2, including the check-in gates, the security screening area and some duty-free shops. Parts of the terminal immediately activated backup power sources, while others remained dark until power was restored in some of the affected areas starting at 12:23pm. Power was fully restored at 1:13pm. Taoyuan International Airport Corp said in a
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