■ Crime
Joint task force nabs pair
The Bureau of Investigation and the Japanese police yesterday jointly announced the arrest of a Taiwanese and a Japanese drug dealer with 113kg of amphetamine estimated to be worth NT$1.9 billion. According to the bureau, 20 agents worked with 80 Japanese officers to arrest 29-year-old Liu Fang-cheng (劉芳誠) and 53-year-old Sakai Takasi at Yokohama harbor as they picked up the drugs on Tuesday. Bureau officials said that they began investigation of the suspects working with Japanese police last month. They allege that Liu and Takasi shipped amphetamine regularly from their own factories in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Taiwanese and Japanese officers also discovered that the suspects separated the drugs into different containers and shipped them as chemical products. Taipei Chief Prosecutor Chen Ta-wei (陳大偉) said that many Taiwanese drug dealers were doing business internationally so law enforcement officers would have to work with their foreign counterparts.
■ Tourism
Number of foreign trips falls
Taiwanese made more than 5.92 million overseas trips last year, down 19 percent from a year earlier mainly because of the SARS outbreak, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday. The number of travelers to Asian countries and territories, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Macau, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, registered the most serious decline, ranging between 20 percent and 35 percent, tourist officials said. The numbers of Taiwanese travelers to Hong Kong and Macau dropped 549,000 and 43,100, respectively, last year from 2002 levels, according to Tourism Bureau tallies.
■ High-Speed Rail
Station makes room
Fears the new high-speed railway will make the traditional railroad obsolete are being confirmed with the upcoming handover of two platforms at the Taipei Railway Station. The Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) has announced that, beginning Feb. 17, portions of the two platforms will be shut down, resulting in the cancellation of 18 trains and affecting more than 100,000 commuters. The TRA is slated to share Taipei Railway Station with the Taiwan High Speed Railway Corporation (THSRC) when the high-speed railway begins operation in October next year.
■ Crime
Test-taking scam uncovered
Four people were arrested yesterday for providing people to take tests for international IT certifications and professional licenses in place of other persons who had paid, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) reported. Tung Pei-chang (董佩璋),Hsiung Chih-yuan (熊志遠) and a man surnamed Chang were arrested in Taipei, Taoyuan and Taichung on charges of fraud and violation of the Copyright Law (著作權法), CIB officials said. The group was discovered to have been soliciting customers via the Internet, including at the sites Test4U.net, TaipeiITtest.net and OPASScertification.net. They were offering advance test questions and people could who sit for international IT certification and professional license tests in place of customers who would pay NT$10,000 for each subject, CIB officials said.
POLAM KOPITIAM CASE: Of the two people still in hospital, one has undergone a liver transplant and is improving, while the other is being evaluated for a liver transplant A fourth person has died from bongkrek acid poisoning linked to the Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday, as two other people remain seriously ill in hospital. The first death was reported on March 24. The man had been 39 years old and had eaten at the restaurant on March 22. As more cases of suspected food poisoning involving people who had eaten at the restaurant were reported by hospitals on March 26, the ministry and the Taipei Department of Health launched an investigation. The Food and
A fourth person has died in a food poisoning outbreak linked to the Xinyi (信義) branch of Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in Taipei, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said on Monday. It was the second fatality in three days, after another was announced on Saturday. The 40-year-old woman experienced multiple organ failure in the early hours on Monday, and the family decided not to undergo emergency resuscitation, Wang said. She initially showed signs of improvement after seeking medical treatment for nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, but her condition worsened due to an infection, he said. Two others who
MEDICAL: The bills would also upgrade the status of the Ethical Guidelines Governing the Research of Human Embryos and Embryonic Stem Cell Research to law The Executive Yuan yesterday approved two bills to govern regenerative medicine that aim to boost development of the field. Taiwan would reach an important milestone in regenerative medicine development with passage of the regenerative medicine act and the regenerative medicine preparations ordinance, which would allow studies to proceed and treatments to be developed, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) told reporters at a news conference after a Cabinet meeting. Regenerative treatments have been used for several conditions, including cancer — by regenerating blood cells — and restoring joint function in soft tissue, Wang said. The draft legislation requires regenerative treatments
Taiwanese should be mindful when visiting China, as Beijing in July is likely to tighten the implementation of policies on national security following the introduction of two regulations, a researcher said on Saturday. China on Friday unveiled the regulations governing the law enforcement and judicial activities of national security agencies. They would help crack down on “illegal” and “criminal” activities that Beijing considers to be endangering national security, according to reports by China’s state media. The definition of what constitutes a national security threat in China is vague, Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said. The two procedural regulations are to provide Chinese