CRIME
Man charged in friend’s death
A man has been arrested on suspicion of burning a friend to death to assume his identity in a bid to avoid jail time, police said yesterday. Sun Kuo-huang (孫國晃), 33, was arrested on Wednesday in Pingtung County for allegedly killing his friend, a doctoral student, while leaving a suicide note with his signature to fake his death last week, police said. Sun apparently first attempted to choke his 29-year-old friend to death, but evidence suggests the victim was still alive when Sun placed him on the backseat of a car and set it ablaze, police said. “He tried to deceive the police with the student’s ID card, but our officers caught him,” a Pingtung police spokesman said. Sun allegedly applied for a new driver’s license and other identification documents using the victim’s ID card in a scam that local media compared to the 1999 Hollywood thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley.
CRIME
Former official sentenced
A former official in the Presidential Office was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday for leaking state secrets to China. Wang Ren-bing (王仁炳) was convicted by the Taipei District Court of passing confidential information about the May 2008 inauguration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to Chinese intelligence. It was unclear exactly what information about Ma’s inauguration he passed on and how it could have been beneficial to China. Wang reportedly joined the Presidential Office staff in 2001 under Ma’s predecessor, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). A court spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
TRADE
Gas companies fined for fraud
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday issued NT$600,000 in fines to four companies that made illegal efforts to sell household gas valves under the guise of conducting safety inspections. A recent investigation by the FTC showed that four companies that sell safety switches for gas valves — Shin Chung Natural Gas Co (欣中天然瓦斯), The Great Taipei Gas Corp, Hsin Lin Natural Gas Co and Hsin Chung Pipeline — solicited households by posting notices about safety inspections. However, the real purpose of the visits was to sell safety switches by telling householders that their gas valves were unsafe, a practice that constitutes fraud, the FTC said. The commission therefore issued fines of between NT$100,000 to NT$200,000 to each of the companies for violation of the Fair Trade Act (公平交易法). The FTC also advised consumers to be wary of such solicitors from unknown companies.
EDUCATION
Japan studies center opened
A center for Japan studies was established at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) yesterday in response to a call for deeper academic exchanges between Taiwan and Japan. It is the fourth of its kind in Taiwan, the other centers being at National Chengchi University, National Chung Hsing University and National Sun Yat-sen University. Since last year, the Interchange Association of Japan has been working to set up such centers in local universities as part of its efforts to boost mutual understanding through academic exchange. NTNU President Chang Kuo-en (張國恩) said that unlike the other three centers which place more emphasis on history, literature and language studies, the NTNU center will focus on the politics, economics and society. The center will invite professors in different disciplines to share their insights on modern Japan, he said.
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
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
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,