Thanks to the perseverance of police in search of her roots, a woman who was born in Taiwan and adopted by a Finnish couple when she was a baby has found her biological father and has made plans to meet him in February in Taiwan.
Janica Palonen is the second Finnish adoptee to find success in such a search following Conny Wiik, who met his birth family earlier this year.
Palonen and Wiik are among more than 60 babies sent overseas in the 1980s by a child-trafficking ring that used forged documents to arrange adoptions.
Their search for their biological parents was initiated after another member of the group, Sabina Soderlund, traveled to Taiwan in 2006 to search for her roots. Soderlund has yet to track down her birth parents.
Police learned about Palonen’s case while tracing the backgrounds of Wiik and Soderlund, a police team in New Taipei City yesterday said.
With the assistance of the Taipei City Police Department, the National Police Agency, courts, household registration offices and Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials, the team said it identified a man who was likely to be Palonen’s biological father.
With Soderlund’s help, the team made contact with Palonen, who sounded delighted when told she might have the chance to find her roots, police said.
After a series of DNA-based identity checks, the man was confirmed as Palonen’s father.
Once Palonen was informed of the news, she decided to arrange a trip to meet her biological father, the police said.
Police said the man put his daughter up for adoption due circumstances they did not specify.
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we