CRIME
Northern schools reopen
School campuses in northern Taiwan reopened to the public during non-school hours yesterday, following the capture late on Wednesday of an escaped fugitive in New Taipei City. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Yilan County all announced the reopenings on Wednesday evening, after saying earlier in the day that the campuses would remain closed to the public for an indefinite period. The escaped fugitive, identified as Chien Yu-hung (簡郁紘), fled from a secure facility at a Keelung hospital on Sunday, where he was receiving court-ordered treatment for mental illness, police said. The 39-year-old was found guilty in August last year of attempted murder after assaulting a pedestrian with a glass bottle seven months earlier. Following Chien’s diagnosis of schizophrenia, the Taipei District Court sentenced him to five years of medical guardianship to be followed by a three-year prison sentence. On Monday, Chien was found to have taken the Taipei MRT from Longshan Temple Station to Xinpu Station, at which point the authorities stepped up the search in New Taipei City. The New Taipei City Police Department on Wednesday said that it arrested Chien at an apartment building in Sinjhuang District (新莊).
DIPLOMACY
MOFA, Austria begin talks
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said that it has been engaging in talks with the Austrian government after it was recently informed that Taiwan-issued international driver’s permits (IDP) would no longer be accepted in the EU country. Before the issue is resolved, the government has temporarily suspended accepting Austria-issued IDPs in Taiwan, MOFA deputy spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. The ministry confirmed a day earlier that it had been notified by the Austrian government of its decision to no longer accept Taiwan-issued IDPs. The Austrian Office in Taipei yesterday said that it had not been made aware of the Austrian government’s decision ahead of time, adding that it has since been relaying Taiwan’s reaction to Vienna, including the decision to suspend the acceptance of Austrian-issued IDPs. The office is still waiting for its government’s official response.
TRADE
Taiwan, UK sign MOU
Taiwan and the UK on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on organic agriculture cooperation, allowing the export of related products between both sides. Attending the signing ceremony at the British Office Taipei, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Minister Hu Jong-i (胡忠一) said the MOU between his ministry and the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was groundbreaking for Taiwan’s agriculture sector. Under the MOU, the two sides are to recognize each other’s organic food and processed products, a prerequisite for Taiwan to allow such imports as regulated by the Organic Agriculture Promotion Act (有機農業促進法). Prior to Wednesday’s MOU, Taiwan had only signed similar treaties with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, India and Paraguay, Hu said. The UK has 480,000 hectares of organic farmland and has been eager to export its products to Taiwan since Brexit, he said, adding that among the products from the UK are coffee, beverages and processed food products. The European market in general is interested in Taiwan’s organic tea, rice flour, cookies made from mixed grains, processed fruit juice, organic rice and gluten-free grains, he said.
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
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
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