HEALTHCARE
MOU signed with UK
Taiwan and the UK have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on health cooperation, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said in a statement on Monday. The MOU, which was signed on Friday last week, covers areas such as pandemic preparedness, digital health, health insurance, mental health and healthy aging, the ministry said, adding that it also expects it to serve as a guide for cooperation, including information exchanges and mutual visits. Ministry official Liu Li-ling (劉麗玲) described the MOU as a milestone in Taiwan-UK health cooperation, adding that London was particularly keen on establishing bilateral healthcare reciprocity. The details of the mooted reciprocal healthcare agreement are set to be discussed at a workshop, Liu added. The MOU was inked by Representative to the UK Kelly Hsieh (謝武樵) and British Representative to Taiwan John Dennis. “This new MOU on health cooperation marks a new level of ambition to deepen our existing collaboration on health,” Dennis said in a statement.
DIPLOMACY
Dutch visit canceled
A group of lawmakers from the Netherlands who were scheduled to visit Taiwan this week have canceled their trip due to the collapse of the coalition government there, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced late on Monday. Ministry spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) said that the delegation of members of the Netherlands’ House of Representatives’ Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation Committee was originally set to visit from Sunday to Friday. However, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced his resignation on Friday last week after 13 years in power after his coalition government collapsed over an internal row related to migration policy.
WEATHER
Temperatures to ease
Rainfall from a southeasterly wind system bringing moisture to the nation is expected to bring temperatures down by about 2°C for the rest of the week, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Daytime highs yesterday hovered at about 34°C to 35°C, down about 2°C from Monday, the bureau said, and the same weather pattern is expected to continue until the end of the week and even into Monday next week. The highest temperature recorded on Monday was 38.8°C at the bureau’s Jinlun monitoring station in Taitung County.
CRIME
Wuhu Group boss bailed
A Kaohsiung-based businesswoman who received a 10-and-a-half-year prison sentence for fraud in May has been released on bail after prosecutors questioned her on suspicion of committing similar financial crimes. The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office on Monday said that Wuhu Group boss Chen Chiu-pai (陳秋白) was released on bail of NT$3 million (US$95,785) following questioning. Law enforcement seized NT$79.8 million in cash and NT$16.33 million from bank accounts after raiding Wuhu Group’s offices in Kaohsiung, New Taipei City, Taichung, Changhua County and Tainan after a tip-off on Monday last week. Another 13 employees who were also brought in for questioning by prosecutors were released on bail of NT$150,000 to NT$1 million, prosecutors said. An initial probe showed that more than 10,000 people might have purchased fraudulent financial products from Wuhu Group, they said. Chen was convicted in May of contravening the Banking Act (銀行法) after being found guilty of amassing NT$21.1 billion from investors since 2013 through the sale of fraudulent financial products. Chen has appealed the sentence.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
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