DIPLOMACY
Thrower starts at AIT
Pope Thrower on Wednesday started his role as spokesman for the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Thrower was director for public engagement at the US embassy in Seoul prior to joining the AIT, which represents Washington’s interests in Taiwan in the absence of official diplomatic ties. His previous overseas assignments also included serving as spokesman for the US embassy in Hanoi and assistant spokesman at its embassy in Islamabad, the AIT said in a statement yesterday afternoon. Thrower has also served in Chengdu, China, and held Washington-based roles at the Pakistan Desk and the Sri Lanka and Maldives Desk, it said. In the same statement, the AIT introduced its new deputy spokesman, Andy Dilbert, who took office on Friday last week. Dilbert served as spokesman at the US embassy in Algeria before joining the AIT. His other assignments outside the US include serving as cultural and educational attache in Haiti and deputy cultural attache in Israel, the statement said.
CRIME
E-cigarette arrests made
A Taiwanese couple have been arrested on suspicion of unlawfully importing materials to produce e-cigarette cartridges, the National Police Agency’s Third Special Police Corps said on Wednesday. In December last year, it received information about a group led by a man surnamed Chang (張) that was operating a large e-cigarette factory in Taichung, the corps said. During an investigation, the group relocated its operations multiple times, the corps said. In late May, a task force raided three locations in Taichung, arresting Chang and his female partner, surnamed Lee (李), and detaining six Thai women who had overstayed their tourist visas, it said. The task force seized 940,000 e-cigarette cartridges, 13,298 vape pens, three large barrels of nicotine and 306 cans of flavorings, it said. The material had a combined estimated value of NT$140.6 million (US$4.28 million), it added. The task force also confiscated more than NT$10.15 million in cash, it said. The corps said that the suspects illegally imported nicotine and flavorings from China, mixed them with base liquids and unidentified compounds, and packaged them into cartridges and refill bottles. The suspects set up an online sales system using fake accounts to evade taxes, the corps said.
CRIME
Canadian man indicted
A Canadian was indicted on Thursday for allegedly smuggling a large amount of cannabis into Taiwan, the Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office said. The office said in its indictment that the 31-year-old Canadian man, surnamed Awram, is suspected of conspiring with a man using the pseudonym David Du to smuggle the drugs into Taiwan. Du arranged flight tickets and accommodation, while Awram was responsible for bringing the marijuana into the country, it said, adding that he was to be paid C$2,000 to C$8,000 (US$1,441 to US$5,765) for his role. Awram was carrying 21 packets of cannabis with a net weight of 19.8kg in two suitcases as well as NT$12,700 and C$200 in cash when he arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on March 29, the indictment said. On March 28, suitcases were handed to Awram by Du, who accompanied Awram to Vancouver International Airport to check the luggage, it said. He also gave Awram C$700, it added. Awram was charged with contraventions of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例), prosecutors said. Due to the large quantity of cannabis involved, a prison sentence of 14 years and a fine of NT$100,000 was being sought, the office said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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