■ 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 is preparing to invade Taiwan,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an exclusive interview with British media channel Sky News for a special report titled, “Is Taiwan ready for a Chinese invasion?” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today in a statement. The 25-minute-long special report by Helen Ann-Smith released yesterday saw Sky News travel to Penghu, Taoyuan and Taipei to discuss the possibility of a Chinese invasion and how Taiwan is preparing for an attack. The film observed emergency response drills, interviewed baseball fans at the Taipei Dome on their views of US President
ECONOMIC BENEFITS: The imports from Belize would replace those from Honduras, whose shrimp exports have dropped 67 percent since cutting ties in 2023 Maintaining ties with Taiwan has economic benefits, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials said yesterday, citing the approval of frozen whiteleg shrimp imports from Belize by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an example. The FDA on Wednesday approved the tariff-free imports from Belize after the whiteleg shrimp passed the Systematic Inspection of Imported Food, which would continue to boost mutual trade, the ministry said. Taiwan’s annual consumption of whiteleg shrimps stands at 30,000 tonnes, far exceeding domestic production, the ministry said. Taiwan used to fill the gap by importing shrimps from Honduras, but purchases slumped after Tegucigalpa severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan
The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a southwestern extension of the Sanying MRT Line from New Taipei to Bade District (八德) in Taoyuan, with a goal of starting construction by late 2026. The 4.03-kilometer extension, featuring three new stations, will run from the current terminus at Yingtao Fude Station (LB12) in New Taipei City to Dannan Station (LB14), where it will connect with Taoyuan’s Green Line, New Taipei City Metro Corp said in a statement. This extension will follow the completion of core Sanying Line, a 14.29-kilometer medium-capacity system linking Tucheng (土城), Sansia (三峽)
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
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