China has temporarily banned knife sales in Beijing after two stabbings, major retailers said yesterday in the latest sign of official security fears ahead of National Day on Oct. 1.
Staff at foreign and domestic retailers in the capital, including Wal-Mart and Carrefour, said the ban was issued over the weekend, as Beijing clamps down to prevent disruption to festivities marking China's 60th birthday.
Police have said a Chinese man stabbed two people to death and wounded 14 on Thursday in the Dashilan shopping area near Tiananmen Square, where a military parade and other events are planned for Oct. 1.
On Saturday another Chinese man slashed an elderly French woman with a knife in the same area just south of the large square, a French embassy spokesman said.
The motive in each incident was not clear and both assailants were apprehended. The French victim was not seriously hurt.
“We have not been able to sell vegetable or fruit knives for the past two days. It may have something to do with the Dashilan incidents,” said a female staffer at a branch of the Jingkelong supermarket chain who would not give her name.
A female worker at a Carrefour branch said: “The order came down to us but it did not say why.”
The state-run China Daily said the ban would last until after National Day.
China is planning a huge celebration at Tiananmen Square to mark the founding of the communist state in 1949.
Preparations have included a huge security clampdown, with thousands of extra police stepping up security checks on highways and the underground rail system.
State media reported yesterday that flights out of Beijing would be delayed on the morning of Oct. 1 as part of ramped-up security. Authorities implemented a similar airport shutdown last year for the opening of the Beijing Olympics.
Chinese authorities are grappling with a wave of reported syringe attacks in the restive western region of Xinjiang and have announced jail terms of up to 15 years for seven people.
State press said yesterday that police in the northern city of Xian had arrested a pair of suspects over two stabbings there — one using a sharp bamboo stick and the other a nail — and had stepped up patrols.
City authorities have mobilized nearly 30,000 police and other security personnel to step up patrols in public places, the <
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
‘COMING MENACINGLY’: The CDC advised wearing a mask when visiting hospitals or long-term care centers, on public transportation and in crowded indoor venues Hospital visits for COVID-19 last week increased by 113 percent to 41,402, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, as it encouraged people to wear a mask in three public settings to prevent infection. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said weekly hospital visits for COVID-19 have been increasing for seven consecutive weeks, and 102 severe COVID-19 cases and 19 deaths were confirmed last week, both the highest weekly numbers this year. CDC physician Lee Tsung-han (李宗翰) said the youngest person hospitalized due to the disease this year was reported last week, a one-month-old baby, who does not
RSS