Railway police voiced opposition to a suggestion from the Taipei City Government to grant limited space at Taipei Railway Station to serve as a shelter for homeless people.
Railway police officer Chen Yen (
Chen said the railway police were against the idea, saying that it would attract more homeless people to the Taipei Railway Station area.
It would be very hard to manage the situation, Chen said, adding that the policy would also impact the security of passengers and the appearance of the station.
Chen said the railway police had recorded the names of more than 200 homeless individuals staying around the station. Most of them beg during the daytime and sleep in corners of the station at night.
"The number of homeless people has increased in recent years and we are seeing more beggars begging outside the station and at intersections in the area," he said.
Chen said cases had been reported involving homeless women getting undressed to wash themselves in the station's women's restrooms, giving others a shock.
A homeless man was also beaten to death recently by another homeless man inside the station, he said.
Taipei City Government's Department of Social Welfare said social workers had been patrolling the area, sending homeless people to other places to shower and have their hair cut.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
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