DIPLOMACY
Tsai to speak at summit
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to share Taiwan’s experience in handling the COVID-19 pandemic and its achievements on the road to democracy at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit via video, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The annual meeting, organized by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 2017 by former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is to take place on Thursday and Friday next week in a virtual setting because of the COVID-19 pandemic. “President Tsai will be the first to speak on the second day of the summit,” Kendra Chen (陳詠韶), deputy director-general of the ministry’s Department of European Affairs, told a regular press conference in Taipei. Other speakers include US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova.
DIPLOMACY
Foreign envoys announced
The Presidential Office yesterday announced changes in diplomatic positions, following a minor Cabinet reshuffle on May 20, when President Tsai Ing-wen started her second term. Former deputy minister of foreign affairs Kelly Hsieh (謝武樵) has been appointed representative to the UK, replacing David Lin (林永樂), who is retiring. Former National Security Council (NSC) deputy secretary-general Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) is to be the new representative to the EU and Belgium, taking over the position from Harry Tseng (曾厚仁), who is to serve as deputy minister of foreign affairs. Former deputy minister of foreign affairs Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉) is to take up the position of NSC deputy secretary-general. Former Environmental Protection Administration minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) has been tapped as representative to Thailand, replacing Tung Chen-yuan (童振源), who left the post last month after becoming the minister of the Overseas Community Affairs Council.
SOCIETY
Teen detained over stabbing
The Shilin District Court’s Juvenile Court yesterday approved a request to detain a 16-year-old high-school student for allegedly repeatedly stabbing a 10-year-old girl at a school in New Taipei City earlier in the day. The suspect, surnamed Liu (劉), allegedly took a fruit knife to school and attacked a girl, surnamed Wei (魏), when she arrived at about 7am before classes started. Liu allegedly stabbed Wei in the back several times before he was restrained by a school volunteer and a teacher at the scene, New Taipei City police said. Wei sustained multiple wounds ranging from 4cm to 10cm in length and was immediately taken to a nearby hospital. A hospital spokesperson said that her condition was not life-threatening and had stabilized. During questioning, Liu said he does not know Wei and was unable to explain why he stabbed her, saying only that he “lost control,” police said.
TRANSPORTATION
Express train rides sold out
Long-distance express train tickets for travel at peak times for the four-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday later this month are sold out, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said on Wednesday. More than 285,000 tickets were sold online, via telephone or at convenience stores in the early hours of Wednesday morning, TRA data showed.
Among the sold-out Tze-Ching Express tickets were those for travel from Taipei to Hualien County from noon on June 24 (the day before the holiday begins) to 6pm on June 25; from Taipei to Taitung County on June 24 and 25; and from Taitung and Hualien to Taipei on June 28 for all trains departing after 7am. On the line that goes north-south in western Taiwan, express train tickets from Taipei to Kaohsiung between 1pm on June 24 and 11am on June 25, as well as those from Kaohsiung to Taipei between 9am and 5pm on June 28 were sold out. Tze-Chiang express train tickets from Kaohsiung to Taitung on the South-link line for travel on June 25 before noon were also sold out, the agency said.
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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