Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday ordered the National Police Agency to work closely with prosecutors to catch the mastermind behind recent allegations of game-fixing in professional baseball.
“It grieves the public to see these repeated occurrences of gambling in professional baseball games. Throwing a game is ... an act of cheating and failure to differentiate between right and wrong,” Wu was quoted by Cabinet Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) as saying.
Wu made the remarks at a closed-door Cabinet-level meeting held regularly to review the government's performance in maintaining public order.
During the same meeting, Minister of the Interior (MOI) Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said law enforcement officials would also prioritize implementing the newly amended Statute for Narcotics Hazard Control (毒品危害防制條例), which imposes heavier penalties on drug users, as well as measures against bicycle theft.
The ministry said that the number of reported bicycle thefts in the first three quarters of this year reached 2,843 — a 19.1 percent increase over the same period last year. Of those, 1,450 were recovered.
One of the anti-theft measures calls for bicycle producers to etch a serial number on each bicycle and for retailers to keep records of buyers to establish a bicycle registration database, the ministry said.
The ministry also reported that a third-quarter survey showed that only 36.37 percent of the public was satisfied with public order, an increase of 9.04 percentage points from the previous quarter.
The survey also showed that 14.6 percent of the public considered violent crimes a serious issue, down 4 points from the previous quarter; 29.26 percent said theft was a serious problem, down 3.05 points; and 44.39 percent expressed concern over the seriousness of fraud cases, down 6.43 points.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
WATCH FOR HITCHHIKERS: The CDC warned those returning home from Japan to be alert for any contagious diseases that might have come back with them People who have returned from Japan following the World Baseball Classic (WBC) games during the weekend are recommended to watch for symptoms of infectious gastroenteritis, flu and measles for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. Flu viruses remain the most common respiratory pathogen in Taiwan in the past four weeks and the influenza B virus accounted for 55.7 percent of the tested cases, exceeding the percentage of influenza A (H3N2) infections and becoming the local dominant strain, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said at a news conference on Tuesday. There were 82,187 hospital visits for
Alumni from Japan’s Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School marching band, widely known as the “Orange Devils,” staged a flash mob performance at the Grand Hotel in Taipei yesterday to thank Taiwan for its support after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The show, performed on the earthquake’s 15th anniversary, drew more than 100 spectators, some of whom arrived two hours before the show to secure a good viewing spot. The 26-member group played selections from “High School Musical,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and their signature piece “Sing Sing Sing” and shouted “I love
Taiwan’s three major international carriers are increasing booking fees, with EVA Airways having already increased the charge to US$28 per flight segment from US$25, while China Airlines (CAL) and Starlux Airlines are set to follow suit. Booking fees are charged by airlines through a global distribution system (GDS) and passed on to passengers. Carriers that apply the fees include CAL, EVA, Starlux and Tigerair Taiwan. A GDS is a computerized network operated by a company that connects airlines with travel agents and ticketing platforms, allowing reservations to be made and processed in real time. Major players include Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport. EVA Air began
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