■ Accidents
Filipino seaman drowns
A Philippine seaman drowned in Kaohsiung Harbor yesterday after he was thrown into the sea by a falling log, police said. The victim, identified as 29-year-old Rubeng Salong, was a crew member on the Panama-registered Ho Feng No.7. The man was painting the cargo vessel when a log being unloaded from the ship fell and hit him at around 8:45am, police said. "A hoisting rope carrying three logs broke. One of the falling logs hit him and threw him into the sea," said Chen Chun-yuan, an official at the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau. The man's body was recovered after a two-hour search.
■ Humanitarian aid
TV anchor to visit refugees
A TV news anchorwoman from Taiwan is set to visit a refugee camp in Thailand for Karen refugees from Burma at the end of this month to cover the story of their situation for a campaign aimed at raising funds to help them. Ma Chien-hui (馬千惠), who is a member of the Eastern Multimedia Group, which has jointly organized the campaign with the Chinese Association for Human Rights, said she has completed preparations for her visit to the refugee camp located near the Thai town of Mae Sot near the border with Burma. She said she will do her best to convey the refugees' situation in the hope of arousing the love and compassion of the people of Taiwan. The campaign, aimed at raising funds to help the refugee children attend school, is also designed to collect money for medical aid for the refugees.
■ Diplomacy
US delegation set to arrive
A US congressional delegation composed of three members of the House of Representatives will arrive in Taipei tomorrow for a three-day visit. The visit by the three House members -- Earl Pomeroy, a Democrat, Tom Feeney, a Republican, and Eni Faleomavaige, a Democrat -- is being organized by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank. During the visit, the three congressmen as well as four members representing the Heritage Foundation will meet President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Premier Yu Shyi-kun and KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰). The delegation will be honored at a luncheon hosted by Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (簡又新). In addition to attending a briefing by the Taipei office of the American Institute in Taiwan, the group will visit the National Palace Museum. The delegation is scheduled to leave Taiwan on Wednesday.
■ Diplomacy
Italy to send representative
Italy will send another diplomat in the middle of this month to serve as its deputy representative to Taiwan, it was learned on Friday. Sources said the move indicates that Italy attaches great importance to its relations with Taiwan. Italy first sent a representative to Taiwan in 1994, and established the Italian Economic, Trade and Cultural Promotion Office in Taiwan the following year to handle Taiwan-Italy relations. Alberto Galluccio assumed the post of director of the office in 2000, becoming the third person to hold the job. The sources said that the Italian Foreign Ministry granted the members of Taiwan's representative office in Italy diplomatic IDs in February last year. Italy also granted a visa for Vice President Annette Lu for her transit in Europe, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (簡又新) visited Italy in June, they said. Galluccio played a role in all of these moves, they added.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
RSS