■ GOVERNMENT
Consular services expanded
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday announced an expansion to its mobile consular services to 29 another cities worldwide to regularly post consular staff in areas with significant populations of overseas Taiwanese, Taiwanese businesspeople and tourists. The services include passport and visa issuance, document authentication and other consular matters. Starting this month, consular officers from the nation’s representative offices in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand will be sent on a monthly basis to other cities in those countries. Mobile services in New Zealand are available every four months and twice a year in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, India, Australia, Russia, the US, Canada, St. Vincent, South Africa, Lesotho, Mauritius and the UK. In Costa Rica, consular services will be provided once every three months by officers from the embassy in Nicaragua. Details can be found online on the Web sites of individual embassies and representative offices.
■ LEGISLATION
Amendment targets teens
The Cabinet amended the statute governing video arcades yesterday to impose a clear ban on young teenagers visiting arcades late at night or when they should be at school. The amendment stipulates that children under 15 “are forbidden” from visiting video arcades after 10pm and during school hours. All minors under 18 “are forbidden” from visiting adult video arcades. The main change to the law was in the wording, with the term “are forbidden” replacing the phrase “are not allowed.” The amendment also prohibits individuals who have been convicted on rape or child prostitution charges from owning or managing a video arcade.
■ TRAVEL
Agency lowers fuel fee
Travelers who book their tickets with domestic airlines after next Wednesday can expect better prices. The Civil Aeronautics Administration said on Monday it would adjust the fuel surcharge for international flights. Long-distance international flights, including flights to New Zealand and Australia, will see the fuel surcharge dropped from US$39 to US$26. The fuel surcharge for short-distance international flights will fall from US$15 to US$10. The adjustment came after CPC, Taiwan’s (台灣中油) fuel price dropped from US$83.44 per barrel to US$67.38 this month.
■ GOVERNMENT
President drops funds
The Presidential Office said yesterday it would forfeit the NT$61 million (US$2 million) budget earmarked for hiring presidential advisers and would instead choose advisers willing to work for free. The office’s list of advisers will be made available today or tomorrow, Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said. Wang said the decision was made after taking into consideration the government’s strained financial situation. It would also create trouble if the budget were approved but not used, he said. Wang said the Presidential Office would propose an amendment to the Organic Act of the Presidential Office (總統府組織法) to scrap paid presidential advisers. As the law stands, the president must hire senior advisers to the president, national policy advisers and military strategy advisers. The number of paid and unpaid senior advisers must not exceed 15 each. That of paid national policy advisers must be less than 30 and unpaid ones less than 60. The number of military strategy advisers is 15.
■ CRIME
Cops nab bungling burglar
A watch thief has been arrested after sending expensive stolen watches to their owner to estimate their value, local media reported yesterday. The man, surnamed Tsai, 37, broke into a house on Dec. 28 in Hsinchu and made off with nine watches and some jewelry. Believing the watches might be valuable, he asked an associate identified by his surname, Chuang, to take the stolen timepieces to a watch shop in Hsinchu to be appraised, local media reported. The nine watches were all expensive pieces, including a limited-edition EPOS, a Swiss mechanical watch valued at NT$70,000. The jewelry was valued at a total of NT$200,000. The watch shop Chuang visited on Sunday was run by the man whose home Tsai had burglarized, the reports said. When the watch shop owner saw the nine watches, he recognized them and called the police, who questioned Chuang and eventually arrested Tsai.
■ Military
Easy come, easy go
Military personnel in the north of the country were delighted on Monday to find they had been paid an extra month’s salary, only to be disappointed when the extra money later disappeared. Like many employers nationwide, the armed forces pay salaries on the fifth day of each month. On this occasion, however, the branch of the Taiwan Cooperative Bank handling military salaries mistakenly transferred wages for November again along with those for last month. Military authorities discovered the error and instructed the bank to cancel the transfers later in the day. Ministry of National Defense spokeswoman Lisa Chih (池玉蘭) said that she, too, had found more money than expected in her account, only to find the money was gone later when she checked with her bank.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
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