An imprisoned serial rapist who made headlines two years ago when he was admitted to National Taiwan University (NTU) has given up his right to enter the prestigious school, a Christian group said yesterday.
The inmate surnamed Yang informed the Christian group of his decision recently in a letter to Huang Ming-chen (黃明鎮), secretary-general of the Christian group dedicated to assisting inmates in repenting their sins and rebuilding their lives.
Yang, who has been denied parole four times over the past two years, said in the letter that a story he read in a book has prompted him to make up his mind to give up his dream to enter NTU.
The story was about a child whose hand inadvertently became stuck in a valuable antique vase. In order to save his hand, his parents broke the vase. They came to find that the child actually had a piece of candy in his hand and that breaking the vase was a result of the child's stubbornness.
"This story inspired me to give up my right to enter NTU. I won't be that child. I won't cause trouble and panic in society any more simply because of my intention to enter the university," he said.
Yang, in his mid-30s, was sentenced on 34 counts of robbery and sexual attack. He was also known as the "Huakang Wolf" because most of the crimes he committed were at Huakang, the campus of the Chinese Culture University on Yangmingshan in suburban Taipei. Yang has served roughly half of his 17-year prison term.
Since Yang passed the hotly contested university entrance examination in the summer of 2001 and got the admission to the NTU's Department of Sociology, the Ministry of Justice's parole board has turned down his appeal for parole four times after extensive consultations with experts who were unable to agree unanimously with the prediction that there is little likelihood he will repeat his crimes.
Public concern over the inmate's release and entry into university has also fueled the parole board's worry that he might not get the acceptance and sympathy which is vital to his successful rehabilitation in the community.
Vice Minister Hsieh Wen-ting (
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the