POLITICS
Hsiao Bi-khim in the US
Vice president-elect and former representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) is in the US this week for a private visit, a senior Taiwanese official and a US spokesperson said on Tuesday. A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu (劉鵬宇), said China “firmly opposes” any form of official interaction between the US and Taiwan, and referred to Hsiao as “a diehard ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist.” “We firmly oppose any visit by Hsiao Bi-khim to the US in any name or under whatever pretext,” Liu said, adding that the US should “not arrange any form of contact between the US government officials and Hsiao Bi-khim.” A Taiwanese official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said Hsiao arrived in the US this week and is to spend the next few days there on a low-profile “personal trip” that includes packing up her personal belongings. The official declined to elaborate.
CRIME
Police raid nightclub
A total of 172 people were arrested on suspicion of drug offenses over the weekend when police raided a nightclub in Taichung that had been hosting illicit drug activities, police said on Tuesday. The raid was carried out at about 4am on Sunday at a nightclub inside the ASEAN Plaza, a multipurpose entertainment complex in the city’s Central District (中區), the Taichung Police Department’s First Precinct said. The suspects included the nightclub operator — a 32-year-old man identified by his last name Tu (杜) — a 34-year-old employee and a Vietnamese national surnamed Manh, police said. The 169 other suspects were nightclub patrons, who were also Vietnamese nationals, with 33 identified as migrant workers who are in the country illegally after leaving their legal jobs in Taiwan, police said. All of the 172 suspects were arrested at the scene and brought in for questioning, as police found a myriad of illicit drugs including 122 sachets of ketamine, it said. The suspects are being investigated on suspicion of drug related crimes, police said, adding that the National Immigration Agency has been notified about the 33 migrant workers.
CULTURE
Moon specimens in Taipei
A display of a lunar sample that former US president Richard Nixon gifted to Taiwan in 1969 has returned to the National Museum of History after being away for decades, the museum said on Monday. The wooden case display, containing four moon rock fragments encased inside a semi-sphere, was first exhibited at the museum in Taipei in 1970. The display and moon soil samples were then relocated to Academia Sinica’s Institute of Physics for safekeeping, before they were given to Taichung’s National Museum of Natural Science in 1994. Those samples have returned to the Taipei museum and are part of a show marking its reopening on Feb. 21 after a nearly six-year renovation. The show is to run through April 28. In the display, the lunar specimens are mounted above a Republic of China flag, which was flown to the moon and back on the Apollo 11 mission by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. It also features two plaques, one of which reads: “Presented to the people of Republic of China by Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America.” The other says: “This Flag of your nation was carried to the Moon and back by Apollo 11 and this fragment of the Moon’s surface was brought to Earth by the crew of that first manned lunar landing.”
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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