DIPLOMACY
Chen to travel to Honduras
Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) is to attend the inauguration of re-elected Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez this month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) told a news conference that Chen is to represent President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at the Jan. 27 ceremony. The ministry is planning Chen’s visit to Central America and is to reveal more details when the time is right, he said. Hernandez was declared the winner of last year’s election on Dec. 17, amid ongoing allegations of electoral fraud. On Wednesday last week, Tsai congratulated Hernandez on his re-election via a video conference call, making her one of the first world leaders to extend her congratulations to him.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Turkey eyes Taipei mosque
The Turkish government is interested in making a donation for the construction of a third mosque in Taipei, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday. Ko is to visit Turkey in a few weeks to discuss the project. Ko told a news conference that Turkey has expressed an interest in building a mosque in the city that would potentially be worth millions of US dollars. The mayor is to travel to the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland and Turkey from Jan. 27 to Feb. 6 to learn more about urban renewal, the circular economy, “smart” cities and shared transportation in major cities around the world. Another focus of the trip is to discuss funding for the mosque project, Ko said.
TRANSPORTATION
Crane falls on power lines
A truck-mounted crane collapsed early yesterday morning at Taichung’s Houli Station, causing a power outage that affected 2,650 passengers, the Taiwan Railways Administration said. The crane collapsed and fell onto power lines, disrupting the electricity supply and train services, the agency said. The damaged crane was removed from the site at 5:15am and rail services returned to normal at 8:11am, it said. During the service disruption, eight shuttle buses were used to transport about 500 passengers between Miaoli County’s Sanyi Township (三義) and Taichung’s Fongyuan District (豐原), as well as Taichung’s Houli District (后里) and Fengyuan. Passengers affected by the delay are eligible for compensation if they experienced a delay of more than 45 minutes, including a full refund.
SOCIETY
Foreign student found dead
A Malaysian student at Da-Yeh University in Changhua County was on Wednesday night found dead outside the men’s dormitory dressed in a Spider-Man costume. He is believed to have fallen from the fifth floor of the building. A passerby found the student, surnamed Lee (李), lying unconscious on the ground and notified the university and police, officials said. Lee was dead when officers reached the scene, they said. Police suspect that Lee was on the balcony taking selfies when he fell, given that they found his cellphone on a fifth-floor balcony. One of Lee’s classmates told police that Lee had said he was going to take photographs. Police are unable to definitively determine the cause of Lee’s death because there were no witnesses, Changhua County Police Department Yuanlin (員林) Precinct investigation unit head Chan Ting-yu (詹廷育) said. The university has contacted Lee’s family in Malaysia and is to arrange for them to travel to Taiwan, it said.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
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