■ Crime
Bounty on fugitives raised
The cash reward for infor-mation leading to the arrest of prominent fugitives will be raised from the NT$1 million (US$29,410) to NT$10 million to give people more incentive to come forward, Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday. Yu told lawmakers that the reward program is expected to be put into force in one week to facilitate apprehension of former Kaohsiung City Council speaker Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄), former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wu Tse-yuan (伍澤元) and others. Yu said foreign nationals and governments, including that of China, would be eligible to receive the rewards. Chu was convicted of vote-buying. Wu was convicted of corruption in 1996.
■ Government
Control Yuan slams MOTC
Members of the Control Yuan imposed corrective mea-sures on the Ministry of Transportation and Com-munications yesterday for improperly handling of the release of shares of Chung-hua Telecom to public investors. "The ministry failed to carry out the share release of Chunghua Tele-com according to a plan mapped out by the govern-ment, which emphasized that the release must be based upon the principle of fair-ness to public investors," Control Yuan members said in their decision. They ruled that the ministry's derelic-tion of duty allowed key businesspeople to dominate the share release last December.
■ Taipei County
More people, less cash
Rapid population growth has aggravated the financial difficulties of the Taipei County Government, an official said yesterday. Lo Ching-hsio (駱清秀), director of the Department of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, told a county government meeting that over the past six years, the population has increased by 250,000 to 3.67 million, pushing up annual government spending from NT$63.2 billion (US$1.86 billion) in 1998 to NT$89.7 billion this year, or a hike of 42 percent. The spending increase and the decrease in tax revenues have boosted government debt to NT$56 billion, he said.
■ Health
SARS scare rebuffed by CDC
A person who recently returned from China was briefly suspected of being the first case of suspected SARS this fall, the Chinese-language media reported
late last night. The uniden-
tified person sought treat-ment at a private hospital
in Kaohsiung after suffering from a fever for two days,
a typical symptom of SARS. The hospital referred the patient to a municipal hos-pital for further treatment last night, triggering a panic among other patients at
the facility and their families. But a senior Center for Disease Control official
said that no new cases of SARS have been reported
to the center so far. "There
is no reported case of SARS in Kaohsiung. If there were such case, we would have reported it to the World Health Organization," said Shih Wen-yi (施文儀), the center's deputy director general.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it