■ DEFENSE
MND announces reshuffle
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced a senior military reshuffle on Monday, with the deputy minister of defense, Admiral Lin Chen-yi (林鎮夷), promoted to the post of chief of the general staff. Lin, a naval academy graduate who rose through the ranks to reach the navy's top office before assuming his current post, will replace General Hou Shou-yeh (霍守業), who has been tapped to serve as a strategic adviser to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Meanwhile, Army Commanding General Chao Shih-chang (趙世璋) will succeed Lin as deputy minister of defense. Chao's position will be filled by Yang Tien-hsiao (楊天嘯), incumbent head of the ministry's General Political Warfare Bureau. The MND said the personnel changes would take effect tomorrow.
■ DIPLOMACY
Lai to attend St Lucia day
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has named Judicial Yuan President Lai In-jaw (賴英照) as his special envoy to attend the 30th Independence Day celebrations in St Lucia, one of the nation's Caribbean diplomatic allies. Diego Chou (周麟), deputy director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department of Central and South American Affairs, said the delegation attending the Feb. 22 celebration would include Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Javier Hou (侯清山), who would depart for St Lucia on Feb. 19. The ministry said Lai would be the highest-ranking official from Taiwan to visit the Caribbean island nation since the two countries restored diplomatic relations in April 2007. St Lucia established official relations with Taiwan in 1984 but the friendship was terminated in 1997 when St Lucia's government at the time switched diplomatic recognition to China.
■ POLITICS
Winkler eyes legislature
Robin Winkler, an environmentalist and founder of Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association (WaH), said yesterday he was bidding for the Green Party Taiwan's (GPT) nomination for the legislative by-election in Taipei City's sixth electoral district. The by-election is being held after former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) resigned over allegations she still holds US citizenship. The Nationality Act (國籍法) prohibits government officials from possessing foreign citizenship. Winkler, who gave up his US citizenship in 2003 to become a naturalized Taiwanese, is a lawyer by occupation. Winkler, who founded WaH in 1993, is an avid lobbyist for the rights of animals and plants against developing constructions. He also served one term as a member of the Environmental Protection Administration's environmental impact assessment panel. Other GPT primary candidates include GPT Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲), as well as the party's founding member Chang Shu-mei (張淑玫).
■ ENVIRONMENT
Group plans gene bank
An environmental protection association in Taipei County is promoting a project to establish the nation's first gene bank for native aquatic and wetland plants in Wugu Township (五股). The Taipei County Sustainable and Environmental Development Association floated the concept of setting up the gene bank in line with the theme for World Wetlands Day 2009 — Upstream-Downstream: Wetlands Connect Us All, association president Chen Mu-cheng said. Chen said the association hoped the gene bank could help increase public awareness of the fact that the nation's aquatic plants are fast-disappearing and enhance public understanding of people and wetlands.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
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