■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.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
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