DIPLOMACY
Tuvalu PM touts ties
New Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feleti Teo yesterday said his country shares democratic values with Taiwan and reaffirmed that his government would maintain diplomatic ties with Taipei. Teo spoke to the Associated Press via Zoom in his first interview with international media since his government took office earlier this week. “Our ties with Taiwan are purely based on democratic principles and they have been very loyal to us,” Teo said. “We don’t see any reason why we need to invest in time to discuss and engage in the two-China discussion,” he added, referring to a counter-policy from Beijing’s “one China” principle. Seve Paeniu, who was finance minister in the previous government and was considered a leadership contender in the election, had said Tuvalu’s relationships with Taiwan and Beijing should be reviewed. Paeniu was excluded from Teo’s Cabinet. The question of changing allegiances was “definitely not” an issue for his people, Teo said.
CRIME
Two officers sentenced
Two military officers on Thursday were sentenced to six and seven years in prison after they were found guilty of making up intelligence to claim performance bonuses totaling more than NT$10 million (US$316,396). The guilty verdict was handed to two officers from the Military Intelligence Bureau, a female colonel surnamed Su (蘇) and a male lieutenant colonel with the same last name, the Shilin District Court said. The court sentenced the woman to seven years in prison and deprivation of civil rights for six years, while the man was sentenced to six years in prison and deprivation of civil rights for five years. Both were indicted on charges of corruption, forgery and money laundering by the Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office in November last year. The officers received performance bonuses after they began providing fabricated intelligence in April 2018 that was supposedly obtained from “Liang Fang” (梁方), a fictitious Chinese intelligence officer, an indictment document said. In June last year, raids were carried out at the suspects’ locations during which cellphones and bank records were seized. The verdict can be appealed.
SOCIETY
Pensions increased
The Examination Yuan and Executive Yuan on Thursday approved proposals to raise monthly pension payments for retired civil servants, military personnel and public school teachers by 4 percent, retroactively from Jan. 1. In a news release, the Ministry of Civil Service said that the Act Governing Civil Servants’ Retirement, Discharge and Pensions (公務人員退休資遣撫卹法) stipulates that pension payments must be reviewed and adjusted either every four years or when accumulated consumer price index (CPI) growth reaches 5 percent. Accumulated CPI growth, since a 2 percent pension adjustment was announced in July 2022, reached 5.51 percent at the end of last year, the ministry said. In a separate statement, the Cabinet said a review committee set up by the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Civil Service and Ministry of Education met on Jan. 23 and came to an agreement to raise the pension payments by 4 percent. The proposals were presented concurrently to the Examination Yuan, which oversees civil servants, and the Executive Yuan, which oversees military personnel and public school teachers, and were approved on Thursday.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its