FOOD
Eggs arriving from abroad
Supplemental egg imports are to arrive on Wednesday and reach the shelves before the Tomb Sweeping Festival long weekend, the Council of Agriculture said yesterday. To ease daily egg shortages, which range from 500,000 to 800,000, the council is importing eggs from 10 countries including the US, Thailand and Australia. The eggs are to be distributed at regular wholesale prices, and each box should cost between NT$60 and NT$70, it said. Additional imports have been arranged through new channels within Southeast Asia, as well as with Turkey, Brazil and possibly Poland, the council said.
GOVERNMENT
Trafficking law tightened
The Cabinet on Thursday approved a draft bill setting a maximum five-year prison sentence for attempted human trafficking, rising to seven years if the victim is a minor. The proposal’s amendments to the Human Trafficking Prevention Act (人口販運防制法) and the Criminal Code are to be sent to the legislature for review. It comes after a series of incidents last year in which hundreds of Taiwanese were lured by criminal gangs offering lucrative job offers in Cambodia, only to be held there against their will and forced to work in telecom scams or as prostitutes. Under the proposal, the penalties would apply, for instance, when a trafficking attempt was intercepted by police at an airport, or if the victim is otherwise rescued before being trafficked abroad. A minimum one-year term would be applied to threats, force or fraud being used to subject a person to labor exploitation or underpayment for profit. It would also impose a prison term of one to seven years for exploitation or using a person to carry out activities that are illegal in Taiwan.
COVID-19
Mask rules could loosen
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Thursday said that it is pushing to lift the mask mandate on public transportation after the middle of next month if COVID-19 infections continue to abate. CECC head Victor Wang (王必勝) in a regular briefing on Thursday said it is considering easing the mandate with a recommendation that passengers wear masks, but the matter must be discussed with government ministries and agencies. A timetable would not be decided until after the Tomb Sweeping holiday, he added. Additionally, the CECC is discussing cutting hospitals’ special COVID-19 wards and related operations. Space for special wards was reduced to 4 percent of hospital space last week, and further cuts are being considered, the CECC said.
CRIME
Robbery suspects nabbed
A woman who withdrew nearly NT$7 million (US$230,620) from two different banks in Taipei on Thursday was robbed of NT$5 million by four men who fled the scene. The four suspects in the case were yesterday referred to the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office on robbery charges. The woman, surnamed Hsieh (謝), withdrew NT$5 million and NT$1.95 million from banks in Nangang (南港) and Neihu (內湖) districts respectively. As she drove along Xingzhong Road, an unknown man allegedly opened the door of the vehicle, sprayed her in the face with pepper spray and absconded with NT$5 million, police said. The man left in a vehicle with three accomplices and drove toward Keelung. The police took action after receiving a report. The vehicle and four men were stopped around the 19km mark of Provincial Highway No 2C at 4:10pm driving toward Taipei, police said.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led