Investigators yesterday said that they were looking for three men who allegedly kidnapped and threatened the baseball coach of La New Bears, telling him to throw the game in the play-off on Oct. 25.
La New Bears, however, beat the President Lions 7-3 in Game 4 of the 2006 Taiwan Series, winning their first ever league title.
La New's coach, Lin Kuang-hung (林光宏), last night reported to the National Police Agency's Criminal Investigation Bureau that three men had kidnapped him at gunpoint on Oct. 20 and offered him NT$200,000 (US$6,051) to rig the game because they had collected a large amount of money from gamblers bidding on the game.
PHOTO: LIU HSIN-TE,TAIPEI TIMES
Bureau Deputy Commissioner Kao Cheng-sheng (
The entire process was apparently recorded on tape and made into a VCD, Kao said.
TVBS, which received a copy of the VCD in the mail yesterday, showed a clip from the video of Lin being threatened by the gangsters.
Kao said Lin immediately contacted his team manager and the league after the VCD was released and denied that he had taken any money from the gangsters.
Lin said he did not disclose the matter earlier because he did not want to upset team members before their upcoming game in Japan.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai