Wed, Apr 22, 2009 page4

• Taiwan News Quick Take

  • STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
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  ■ TRANSPORTATION

  Muzha line off this weekend

  The MRT Muzha Line will temporarily suspend service on Saturday and Sunday to allow system tests for the soon-to-open MRT Neihu Line, the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation (TRTC) said. Free shuttle services will be available along the Muzha Line between 6am and midnight during the two days, the company said. The two transit bus routes will be the Xinhai Line and the Jungong Line, the TRTC said. Services will be every two minutes during peak hours and every five minutes during off-peak hours. The company suspended the MRT Muzha Line’s weekend service for seven weeks in November for system integration.

  ■ AVIATION

  Cross-strait talks bear fruit

  Civil Aeronautics Administration director general Lee Lung-wen (李龍文) said yesterday that Taiwan and China had reached a consensus during a preparatory meeting on Saturday on some key aviation issues that will come into play when regular direct flight services become available. Both agreed that passenger flights should be allowed to carry cargo and that pilots and flight attendants at both Taiwanese and Chinese airlines should be able to pass through airline staff-only counters at customs as per the rules governing international airlines, Lee said. Lee, however, said the two sides did not reach an agreement on the possibility of increasing weekly charter flights before moving on to the regular direct flights. “They [China] said this would increase the burden on air traffic control, which could compromise cross-strait aviation safety,” Lee said.

  ■ CRIME

  Taitung prosecutor arrested

  Prosecutors at the Taitung District Court’s Public Prosecutors’ Office arrested one of their own early yesterday on bribery charges. Prosecutor Lin Sheng-lin (林聖霖) was taken into custody for questioning after an internal investigation found that he may have accepted bribes in at least two cases. Armed with a search warrant from the court, members of the Taitung Public Prosecutors’ Office anti-corruption division and agents from the Investigation Bureau raided Lin’s residence and arrested him. Lin had been reassigned from the Shilin Public Prosecutors’ Office in Taipei to the Taitung Public Prosecutors’ Office in August because he had left too many criminal cases unresolved, the Taitung prosecutors’ office said. Ethics officers at the Taitung prosecutors’ office placed Lin under surveillance after noticing that he continued to allow cases to accumulate and that he had dismissed many cases that, in their opinion, he should have prosecuted. Further investigation led to the admission by suspects in two criminal cases that Lin had offered not to indict them if they paid him bribes.

  ■ HEALTH

  Enterovirus to peak

  The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday that the number of enterovirus infections would start increase within the next two weeks, urging parents to pay close attention to their young children. “When the symptoms begin to appear, please take your children to the emergency room at major hospitals rather than to local clinics,” CDC spokesman Shih Wen-yi (施文儀) said. Statistics from the CDC showed that 13 severe enterovirus infections have been recorded in Taiwan so far this year. A two-year-old boy in Yunlin County died after being infected with enterovirus earlier this month. CDC specialists later determined that the boy was a victim of enterovirus type 71(EV71). Enterovirus is the most common cause of aseptic meningitis and can be deadly, especially in young children.
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