ELECTIONS
Ballot paper released
The Central Election Commission yesterday released the three-way ballot paper for the Jan. 11 presidential election and set a 10pm deadline for completing the vote count. The results are to be streamed live on the commission’s Facebook page and YouTube channel, with all of the results expected to be published by 10pm, commission Chairman Lee Chin-yung (李進勇) said. In the interest of transparency, representatives of the parties and candidates would be stationed at polling stations throughout the nation to observe the voting process, he said. The commission also announced that the official presidential campaign period would run from today to Jan. 10. The 28-day campaign period is in accordance with the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法), but it is usually not rigidly enforced, which has led to calls for reform. It is intended to limit the period in which a wide range of campaign-related activities, such as political rallies and opinion polls, can be conducted.
DIPLOMACY
Prague passes motion
The Prague city council in the Czech Republic on Thursday passed a motion to establish sister city ties with Taipei. The council voted 39-0 to approve the motion, with two abstentions. Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib announced last week that he would sign a sister city agreement with Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) next month when Ko visits the Czech capital and looks to boost bilateral trade, tourism, and cultural and educational exchanges between the two cities. Prague plans to send students to Taipei to learn Mandarin, as well as to study Taiwan’s digitization of healthcare and the development of its metro systems, Hrib said. Prague Zoo expects to be gifted a pangolin by Taipei, he added. Prague terminated its sister city agreement with Beijing in October after a dispute over the removal of the “one China” clause.
CRIME
Prisoner sent to Denmark
Ministry of Justice officials on Wednesday handed over an unnamed prisoner to Danish authorities so that the man could serve the remainder of his sentence in his home nation — the first transfer between the two nations. The Danish national, who is serving a nine-year jail term after being convicted of drug offenses, was placed in the custody of two Danish police offers by Taoyuan prosecutors at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, where he was escorted onto a flight bound for Denmark, the ministry said in a statement. The three have since safely arrived in Denmark, the ministry added. The transfer was conducted in line with an agreement signed by the two nations in July. Taiwan has previously transferred seven inmates to Germany and one to the UK, the ministry said.
EDUCATION
Japanese hospitalized
More than 70 Japanese students visiting Taiwan on a school trip have been hospitalized for diarrhea and vomiting in a suspected case of mass food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. Seventy-two of the about 200 students on Thursday were taken to three different hospitals for treatment, the department said. The students had earlier eaten a breakfast buffet at their hotel in Taoyuan. The department said that it had asked the Taoyuan Department of Public Health to take samples of the food served at the hotel for analysis. As of press time last night, 59 of the students had been discharged from hospital, while 13 remained under observation.
Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT