■ ENVIRONMENT
Su Jun-pin to replace Shih
The Executive Yuan yesterday said Taoyuan County Government Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) chief Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) would succeed Vanessa Shih (史亞平) as Government Information Office minister and Executive Yuan spokesperson. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also announced that Shih would become the country’s representative to Singapore, filling a vacancy left open three months ago when Kuo Shih-nan (郭時南), appointed by the former Democratic Progressive Party government, stepped down. Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday the Singaporean government had approved Shih’s appointment.
■ CIVIC GROUPS
Government to increase aid
The government is expected to increase its funding for local non-governmental organizations (NGO) to cooperate with international groups, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. David Wu (吳建國), deputy head of the Department of NGO Affairs, said the government welcomed NGOs to set up offices here as soon as issues such as tax policies were addressed. Wu said the government would increase its aid next year to local NGOs to work with groups abroad such as the US-based Mercy Corp on treating diseases and handling disasters, among other projects.
■ CRIME
Prosecutor sentenced
The Kaohsiung District Court on Monday sentenced a former prosecutor to eight years and six months in prison on charges of corruption, rape, forced obscene acts and obstruction of personal freedom. Wu Chieh-jen (吳傑人), a prosecutor of the Kaohsiung Prosecutors’ Office, was found guilty of committing the offenses against more than 10 women who were targets of his investigations between 1999 and 2006. The court also decided to strip Wu of civil rights for five years after he finishes serving his prison term. The court ordered that Wu undergo mandatory treatment for his sexual urges before beginning his prison term. According to the prosecution, Wu used his influence as a prosecutor to coerce the women to have sex with him and succeeded in compelling one of the women to have sex with him twice in June 2006.
■ LABOR
Hotel dispute resolved
The labor dispute at the Kaohsiung Grand Hotel was resolved yesterday after the management promised to withdraw a plan to lay off 108 employees working for the hotel’s club. The deal was made at a meeting between labor and management representatives at the Legislative Yuan and was arbitrated by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平). It was agreed that the 108 employees would take a 10 percent voluntary salary cut starting in March and will be given full salaries after the hotel begins making a profit.
■ SOCIETY
TV reports corrected
A secretary to Control Yuan President Wang Chien-shien yesterday corrected a report by cable TV stations that said he had been hospitalized since last Wednesday at Taipei Veterans General Hospital because of a myocardial infarction. Wang sought medical treatment as he was experiencing cardiac arrhythmia, his secretary said, adding that Wang did not undergo surgery as stations had reported. The secretary said that Wang was expected to be released from the hospital this afternoon.
■ IMMIGRATION
Tibetans get a break
About 110 Tibetan people who overstayed their visas will be granted temporary alien residence certificates early next year, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) said in a statement late on Monday. The NIA decided to offer overstaying Tibetans temporary residence certificates after working with the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission in helping them resolve their current difficulties out of human rights considerations, the statement said. The NIA previously granted similar temporary residence permits to overstaying Thai and Myanmar students who are descendants of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) troops and have not been given citizenship by their respective countries of residence.
■ JUSTICE
‘Auntie’ files lawsuit
A 35-year-old woman is suing her neighbor for insulting her after he called her “Auntie,” it was reported yesterday. The woman, identified only by her surname Chen, is married and lives in Kaohsiung City. Her neighbor Wang, 30, parked his car near Chen’s door, which she objected to, the report said. Wang apologized, saying he was parking for a short time and would move soon. But Chen continued to complain. Wang, who was in hurry, said: “Auntie, let’s not quarrel over these trivial matters.” Chen said she felt aggrieved and sued Wang for “public insult.” “I have a good education, have a good job, earn a good salary, dress elegantly and have good manners. All my clothes are brand-name products,” she told police. “‘Auntie’ is the term used to refer to old women who yell with a harsh voice in the street, especially country bumpkins. So calling me ‘auntie’ is certainly an insult,” she told police, who failed to persuade her to drop the suit.
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
ALLEGED SABOTAGE: The damage inflicted by the vessel did not affect connection, as data were immediately rerouted to other cables, Chunghwa Telecom said Taiwan suspects that a Chinese-owned cargo vessel damaged an undersea cable near its northeastern coast on Friday, in an alleged act of sabotage that highlights the vulnerabilities of Taipei’s offshore communications infrastructure. The ship is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company whose director is Chinese, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. An unidentified Taiwanese official cited in the report described the case as sabotage. The incident followed another Chinese vessel’s suspected involvement in the breakages of data cables in the Baltic Sea in November last year. While fishing trawlers are known to sometimes damage such equipment, nation states have also
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