■ CRIME
Death sentence sought
After four months in police custody, alleged serial kidnapper gangster Chang Hsi-ming (張錫銘) was indicted yesterday by the Tainan Prosecutors' Office, which is seeking the death sentence. For Chang's gang members Wu Chao-ming (吳朝銘) and Tseng Jui-bin (曾瑞彬), prosecutors will seek a life sentence and for two others, Lin Tai-heng (林泰亨) and Tuan Shu-wen (段樹文), 20 years in prison. Chang and his gang members began to kidnap for a living in 1995. Police said they have been involved in at least 10 kidnapping cases altogether. Chang was arrested earlier this July after being shot at least twice during a fierce gun-battle with police outside his hideout in Taichung County. Prior to his capture, Chang had managed to elude police on four separate occasions over the past few years.
PHOTO: CNA
■ TRANSPORT
City eases bus fears
Taipei City Transportation Department yesterday promised the dispute between shareholders of Taipei Airbus (大有巴士) over its financial situation will not affect the city's bus services. The controversy started on Thursday after the chairman of Taipei Airbus refused to store any more fuel for the buses, an act which may affect services on its 23 bus lines this weekend. Transportation Commissioner Jason Lin (林志盈) said yesterday that other bus companies have agreed to provide additional bus services should Airbus stop running over the weekend. If the company fails to reach an agreement and causes passengers inconvenience within the next 24 hours, the department will revoke the company's rights to its 23 lines and grant the rights to other bus companies. "The rights of our residents is what concerns us most," Lin said
■ CRIME
Man wanted in Vietnam
Vietnamese police have issued an arrest warrant for a Taiwanese businessman on suspicion that he is running a sex tourism business in a Hanoi hotel, police and media reports said on Thursday. The businessman, Chu Chingjung, 50, manager of the joint-venture tourism company Kim Ngoc Co, left Vietnam last year and his whereabouts are unknown, according to a Hanoi police investigator. Chu is accused of providing prostitutes for Asian guests at the Lakeside Hotel in Hanoi, the Vietnamese-language Capital Security newspaper reported. Vietnamese police raided the Lakeside Hotel in December last year, and arrested 74 women and five male clients "caught in the act," the paper reported. Chu and his wife reportedly left Vietnam the next day and have not returned.
■ CRIME
Murderer repatriated
A fugitive Filipino accused of murder who has been in Taiwan since September was deported yesterday. The Filipino, identified only as Virgilio, was returned to his hometown in the Subic Bay District of Zambales province for trial. According to officers from Interpol, Virgilio allegedly shot his wife's younger sister during a struggle for family assets on Sept. 9. The Subic Bay District police issued a warrant for Virgilio's arrest on Sept. 15, followed by a travel ban on him on Sept. 21. Virgilio, however, departed for Taiwan on Sept. 20, to visit his daughter, who married a Taiwanese man in 1995 and has since lived in Panchiao City (板橋市), Taipei County, according to the Interpol officers. After being informed by Interpol officers last month, officials from the Criminal Investigation Bureau began to track Virgilio. The investigators nabbed him in a park in Panchiao on Nov. 4, finding that he had already overstayed his visa.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching