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.
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
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
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