■Crime
Prosecutors call for execution
The Nantou District Prosecutors' Office indicted serial killer Chen Jui-chin (陳瑞欽) and suggested the death penalty late on Thursday night. According to Nantou Prosecutor Hsieh Wei-cheng's (謝謂城) indictment, Chen was charged of raping and murdering his girlfriend Chen Yi-ling (陳怡伶), whose body had been found on May 12 in the Shanlinshi resort area, on May 11. The indictment said that Chen Jui-chin discovered that Chen Yi-ling was wealthy so he decided to murder her and steal her assets to solve his own financial problems. Chen Jui-chin tried to choke Chen Yi-ling to death. When Chen Yi-ling was unconscious, he then raped her. Afterwards, Chen Jui-chin hit Chen Yi-ling to death with a rock. He then dumped her body after he made sure that she had stopped breathing. In addition to the rape and murder, Chen Jui-chin also confessed that he had murdered his first, second and thrird sons to benefit from their life insurance policies. Currently, this part of the crimes was still being investigated by the Chiayi District Prosecutors' Office.
■ Travel
Cycling family nears finish
The four-member Taiwanese family is nearing the finish line of their round-the-world adventure. Huang Chin-pao (黃進寶), a welder, along with his wife and two teenaged sons, plan to take several days of rest in Spokane, Washington, before heading on to Seattle on Tuesday on the last leg of their 25,000km global trek that began in July last year. The family is scheduled to fly from Seattle to San Francisco on July 30 for a stay of several days before returning to Taiwan on Aug. 3. If everything goes smoothly, the family is expected to complete the 7,000km cross-America ride -- that so far has taken them from New York State, through Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Minot, Shelby, and on to Spokane -- and the 13-month globe-trotting journey about a month earlier than scheduled.
■ Environment
Quake jolts eastern Taiwan
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 on the open-ended Richter scale jolted eastern Taiwan at 10:41am yesterday, the Central Weather Bureau reported. The epicenter of the quake was located about 2km southwest of a seismograph station in Suao, Ilan County, at a depth of 72.6km, seismologists reported. The quake was felt almost everywhere in eastern, northern and central Taiwan. It had an intensity of 3.0 in Taipei County and in Ilan City and Ilan County. The quake registered an intensity of 2 in Taipei City, Keelung City, Taoyuan County and Miaoli County, Hualien County and Taichung, Nantou, Changhua and Yunlin counties.
■ Politics
Hualien poll numbers drawn
Polling numbers were drawn yesterday for the Hualien Country commissioner by-election where five candidates are in the race for the post left vacant by the death of the KMT's Chang Fu-hsiung (張福興) in May. The result of draw determines a candidate's placement on the ballot. Independent candidate Wu Kuo-tung (吳國棟) -- a KMT renegade -- drew the No. 1 spot while KMT-PFP alliance candidate Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山) drew the No. 4 spot. DPP candidate You Ying-lung (游盈隆) will be listed third and Green Party candidate Chi Shu-ing (齊淑英) will be second. Independent Hsu Chia-chen (許家琛), who had abstained his right to draw, got No. 5 after an official from the election committee drew on his behalf. The election will be held Aug. 2.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
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