■ Crime
Filipinos arrested for murder
Two Filipinos working aboard a fishing vessel based in Taitung County were arrested yesterday on charges of colluding to murder a colleague, police said. Liqe Alvin Barpolapa, 33, and Arellana Joeyilagan, 32, are accused of having stabbed Egot Danny Zalvado, 36, to death with fruit knives in the vessel's cabin early yesterday. According to reports, the two men first subdued Zalvado and then intimidated the other crew members aboard the Yutsaiwang not to try to stop them. Two fishery workers fled and reported the matter to the police. When police officers arrived, the victim had already lost consciousness due to excessive bleeding. He was pronounced dead upon arrival at a nearby hospital.
■ Politics
Legislator-at-large sworn in
The Legislative Yuan yesterday swore in Huang Fung-shih (黃逢時) as a new Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator-at-large. Huang takes over from Lee He-shun (李和順), who lost his seat after resigning from the KMT. Lee cancelled his membership on Oct. 2 in order to run as a regional legislative candidate in Tainan County after the party refused to allow him to do so as a KMT candidate. Huang is the fifth son of the renowned puppeteer Huang Hai-tai (黃海岱) and was a close adviser to former Yunlin County commissioner Chang Jung-wei (張榮味).
■ National Parks
Yangmingshan most popular
Hikers and tourists made 4.06 million visits to Yangmingshan National Park in the first nine months of this year, making it the most popular national park, the Ministry of the Interior reported yesterday. Yangmingshan, named after the ancient Chinese philosopher Wang Yangming (王陽明), is popular mainly because the park can be reached by a 20-minute drive from downtown Taipei, in addition to its volcanic scenery, thick forests and mountain trails, officials said. In its latest survey, the ministry found that Taiwan's six national parks recorded a total of 12.06 million visits from January until last month, with Yangmingshan attracting about 33 percent of visitors. Trailing Yangmingshan was Kenting National Park, which attracted 3.17 million visitors, and Taroko Gorge, with 2.54 million. Kinmen National Park posted 19 percent growth in the number of visitors during the nine-month period, representing the greatest growth in this regard among all six parks.
■ Copyrights
Anti-piracy unit planned
A new police unit specia-lizing in the prevention of intellectual property rights infringements will begin operations with 220 members on the first of next month, Ministry of Economic Affairs officials said yesterday. The decision was made in an inter-ministerial meeting hosted by Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥). Since Jan. 1 last year, police officers have been assigned to the task in the form of an ad hoc task force. According to Lu Wen-hsiung (盧文祥), deputy director-general the Intel-lectual Property Office, the task force has produced good results and he hopes Taiwan will perform even better after the new unit begins its work. Lu said the US is expected to announce in December the results of its review on whether to downgrade Taiwan's status or remove the nation completely from the "Special 301" priority watch list.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan
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