■ Crime
Two detained at CKS airport
Two men were arrested at CKS International Airport yesterday on charges of attempting to smuggle nearly 6kg of pure-grade heroin into Taiwan from Thailand. Investigators from the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) uncovered a total of 5.85kg of heroin hidden in the duo's luggage. The drugs, which were packed together with various kinds of health foods in 27 bottles, have an estimated street value of NT$200 million. The two suspects were identified as Chao Wen-lung (趙文龍) and Wang Chih-ta (王志達). MJIB agents said they were tipped off a year ago that international drug rings would try to take advantage of Taiwan's economic downturn to tempt unemployed workers and cash-strapped young Internet cafe goers into smuggling contraband drugs into Taiwan from Southeast Asian countries by offering them large sums of money. "We have since deployed informants and have maintained close monitoring," an MJIB official said, adding that the bureau's Taipei branch has been cooperating with customs and aviation police authorities since it came to learn that Chao and Wang would travel to Bangkok last week. The official said investigators will continue to try to track down the duo's accomplices and clients. He also urged local people not to assist in drug trafficking for illegal windfalls.
■ Defense
Nine-to-five schedule mulled
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) is studying the feasibility of allowing military personnel to work nine to five and to go home after work every day like any civilian office worker. Some armed forces units have begun to implement the nine-to-five work plan on a trial basis, and the defense ministry could report to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) about the plan later this year after related measures are worked out, military spokesman Liu Chih-chien (劉志堅) said. Liu stressed, however, that the nine-to-five work plan must not be implemented unless there is enough backup manpower in place for garrison duty, military intelligence authorities to remain in good control of information about enemies, and contingency plans and pre-warning systems are well established. Noting that there is currently no timetable for the implementation of nine-to-five work hours for all military service members, Liu said that the plan will be implemented gradually on a trial basis, beginning with aide and staff agencies, then command units, and finally combat forces.
■ Mathematics
Taiwan wins top prize
A sixth grader from Taiwan has won the top prize at the just-concluded 2005 Asia-Pacific Mathematics Olympiad for Primary Schools held in Singapore. Chen Hsi-an (陳璽安), a sixth grader from Kwanghua Elementary School in Taipei County's Hsinchuang City defeated competitors from India and China to capture the championship in the hotly contested race. A total of 440 primary schoolchildren from 12 Asia-Pacific countries, including Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong, took part in the contest, sponsored by a Chinese high school in Singapore. Besides Chen, six other students from Taiwan won gold medals in the contest, making Taiwan the biggest winner. This was the fourth consecutive year that the nation has sent students to join the competition.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
‘GROWING UP TOGETHER’: Jensen Huang celebrated the nation’s role in the formation of the tech firm at a Silicon Valley gathering, saying ‘Taiwan saved Nvidia’ Taiwan is in the center of the new artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) told a gathering with Taiwanese on Thursday in Silicon Valley’s largest city, San Jose. Tainan-born Huang said it must be celebrated that “Taiwan is right in the middle” of a new industrial revolution in which “something new is being made, and made in a new way.” Huang recalled the manufacturing process of the RIVA 128 graphics processing unit, Nvidia’s first commercial success, describing it as the “most complicated chip at the time.” As Nvidia did not have the budget, he wrote a letter to Taiwan