■ Weather
Typhoon on its way
Typhoon Imbudo, moving in a westerly direction from Guam, is forecast to affect local weather patterns directly or indirectly from Tuesday until Friday, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The bureau said there was a good chance that Imbudo would make a direct hit on Taiwan island and that it would bring heavy rain to eastern Taiwan on Tuesday. The weather will remain cloudy and hot throughout the country over the weekend, with temperatures reaching 35?C in northern Taiwan and 34?C in central and southern Taiwan. There will be scattered showers and thunderstorms in mountainous areas over the next two days, according to weathermen.
■ Crime
Pizza brothel raided
Taipei police have cracked a brothel which used a pizza delivery service as a front and delivered prostitutes like pizza to clients, police said yesterday. "One of our policemen saw a tiny ad stuck on a roadside motorbike, saying: `Do you like pizza? You can eat it in our store, or we can deliver it to you.' There was also a telephone number," a policeman at the Chengchung Police Station said. "We thought it was suspicious and phoned them, and realized it was a brothel, so we raided it last night," he added. Police arrested four prostitutes, two clients and the manager. Prostitution is not illegal but brothels must be licensed. Underground brothels and advertising for custom is illegal.
■ Politics
Cabinet says no new taxes
The Executive Yuan has no intention for the time being of raising taxes to finance its many promises, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. In response to criticism that the administration of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is borrowing money to woo voters with pork-barrel politics, the Executive Yuan said its promises to raise pensions for farmers and to help local governments pay the lump-sum retirement payments for teachers will be financed from the government budget. These promises are actually the government's existing policies and the Executive Yuan is only reiterating these policies. The opposition's criticism that these promises were made to boost Chen's re-election bid is groundless, the Executive Yuan said.
■ Crime
Minister raids nightclub
Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲), National Police Administration (NPA) Director-General Chang Si-liang (張四良) and the NPA's Criminal Investigation Bureau Commissioner Hou You-yi (侯友宜) yesterday led a team of local police officers to raid the Lion King, the biggest nightclub in Taiwan. Yu, Chang and Hou arrived at the nightclub around 1am in a raid supposedly to search for Ecstasy. No illegal drugs were found at the scene, although the owner was fined NT$300,000 for violating the Architecture Law (建築法). The police said that the Lion King illegally tore down a wall inside the building which could compromise the structure during an earthquake. The owner of the nightclub was told to restore the wall within a month or the authorities would fine him again. With a dance floor big enough to accommodate 3,000 revellers, the Lion King has also been linked with Ecstasy use, although the police have never found any there. When Hou was Taoyuan County Police Department commissioner, he accompanied Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) on a raid of the club on Aug. 3 last year.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
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