■ Society
Suicide rocks DPP family
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lan Mei-chin's (藍美津) youngest child, 29-year old Huang Hsin-yi (黃心儀), hung herself on Wednesday. Huang lived in a condominium next door to her parents with her older brother and his wife. Her suicide has raised specula-tion about whether Lan will continue to campaign for the December elections. Lan and her husband Huang Tien-fu (黃天福) have not commented on their daughter's death but their younger son, Taipei City Councilor Lan Shih-tsung (藍世聰), held a press conference to express the family's grief. Huang had been on medication for depression but the family said her condition was stable and there was no hint that she was thinking of suicide.
■ Weather
CWB monitors Nock-Ten
The Central Weather Bureau is monitoring Typhoon
Nock-Ten, bureau sources reported yesterday. Nock-Ten was centered some 1,900km southeast of Taiwan at 10am yesterday, moving northwesterly toward the island at a speed of 21kph. With a radius of 200km, the typhoon was packing maximum sustained winds of up to 180km per hour, meteorologists said. The forecasters don't know yet whether Nock-Ten will directly hit the country, but they expect it to bring tremendous amounts of rainfall in the following days regardless.
■ Health
US beef ban to be lifted
Ten months after banning
US beef imports to prevent mad cow disease from entering the country, health officials yesterday said they intend to lift the ban, pos-sibly by year's-end. After a cow tested positive for the disease in Washington state last December, the govern-ment placed a seven-year ban on US beef imports. After reviewing reports from the US Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health's 18-member committee confirmed that the
US has mad cow disease under control. Bureau of Food Safety Director Chen Lu-hung (陳陸宏) said the department will send officials to the US to verify their findings. If no further health risks are found, the department said it will lift the ban at the end of this year.
■ Society
New bike path to be built
The Taichung County Government announced yesterday that it will build a new route that will be the first in Asia to take advan-tage of an abandoned train tunnel. County Commissioner Huang Chung-sheng (黃仲生) said work on the path will begin next month and is expected to be finished early next year. He said that the project will give his county its third bike-only trail built along abandoned railroad tracks. The new route will start from the horse stables in Houli Township, enter the 1,269m No. 9 tunnel on the old Western Railway Line, pass over the 382m Hualiang Steel Bridge on Tachia River and end where the Tungfeng Green Corridor bike route begins.
■ Cross-strait Ties
No reward for Chinese police
The Criminal Investigation Bureau yesterday denied reports that Chinese police have received a share of NT$8 million in the NT$20 million bounty for the arrest of fugitives Hsueh Chiu (薜球) and Chen Yi-hua (陳益華). "The report was all wrong," a bureau official said, adding that no Chinese police applied for the bounty after Hsueh and Chen were repatriated on Sept. 23. He said it was a Taiwanese informant who gave the tip.
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
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