CROSS-STRAIT TIES
KMT group to visit Beijing
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman Chen Cheng-hsiang (陳鎮湘) will visit Beijing later this week for a “dialogue” with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the KMT said yesterday. Chen, a former legislator and army commander-in-chief, will lead a delegation of senior KMT officials and members of the party’s think tank, the National Policy Foundation. Chen and his delegation will meet on Friday with a group of CCP officials led by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), the KMT said. The meeting will focus exchanges between grassroots KMT and CCP officials, exchanges between young people from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and protection of people’s rights and interests, it said. The goal of the dialogue is to promote cross-strait peace and play a positive role in stabilizing relations to enhance the wellbeing of people on either side of the Strait, it said. The delegation on Saturday will join the heads of the eight pan-blue-camp-led cities and counties at an event promoting Taiwanese agricultural products.
ENVIRONMENT
Air quality hazardous
The air quality in western Taiwan and Kinmen yesterday fell to hazardous levels, the Environmental Protection Administration said. The level of fine particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM2.5) recorded at 16 monitoring stations in Dayuan and Guanyin in Taoyuan, Miaoli and other areas in central and southern Taiwan, and Kinmen hit hazardous levels, the agency said. In areas where the air quality is poor, people are advised to wear masks when going outdoors and to avoid outdoor activities if they are elderly or suffer from heart, respiratory or cardiovascular ailments, the agency said. It warned that foggy conditions can be expected in western Taiwan and on Kinmen and Matsu, causing low visibility.
CRIME
Taiwanese held in Madrid
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday confirmed that 47 Taiwanese were recently arrested in Madrid on charges of telecom fraud and said it would seek their repatriation. A total of 279 people were detained in Spain, including an unspecified number of Taiwanese, for their involvement in telecom fraud, a Spanish newspaper recently reported. The ministry said the suspects were detained after Spanish police last week raided more than 10 locations in Madrid, Barcelona and Alicante. Asked whether the Taiwanese might be deported to China along with the Chinese nationals, the ministry said it has directed Taiwan’s representative office to ask the Spanish government send the Taiwanese home.
SOCIETY
Tzu Chi given award
The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation on Monday received the Philippines Presidential Award in Manila in recognition of its service to Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan. The biennial awards are aimed at overseas-based individuals and organizations who have worked to help Filipinos, supported relief, rehabilitation and development programs in the Philippines or who have excelled in their field or profession. Tzu Chi was among the 23 organizations and individuals that received the awards this year. According to Mario Molina, director of the Kaohsiung extension office of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taiwan, MECO had applied for the award for Tzu Chi to show the Philippines’ gratitude to the group. Tzu Chi has provided humanitarian and spiritual support to numerous Filipino migrant workers in Taiwan, he said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
RSS