■ 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.
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
Instead of threatening tariffs on Taiwan-made chips, the US should try to reinforce cooperation with Taiwan on semiconductor development to take on challenges from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a Taiwanese think tank said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose across-the-board import duties of 32 percent on Taiwan-made goods and levy a separate tariff on semiconductors, which Taiwan is hoping to avoid. The Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET), a National Science and Technology Council think tank, said that US efforts should focus on containing China’s semiconductor rise rather than impairing Taiwan. “Without
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man
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