SOCIETY
Welfare banquets held
More than 30,000 homeless and Aboriginal people attended free year-end banquets held in 13 locations around the country on Wednesday, representing a record-high attendance for the annual event since 1990. The banquets — sponsored by the Huashan, Genesis and Ren-an Homeless Social Welfare Foundations in Taipei, Greater Taichung, Greater Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Greater Tainan, as well as Hualien and Chiayi counties — and the distribution of red envelopes containing NT$200, plus a NT$100 coupon, cost a total of NT$35 million (US$1.17 million). More than 2,000 volunteers helped to serve and provide some warmth to the needy ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday on Jan. 23. Hosting the year-end banquets was not easy this year, especially because they ended up with 30 percent less then their budget goal, the organizers said.
SOCIETY
Suspect’s body cremated
The body of Chang Chih-yang (張志揚), a Taiwanese man who was the main suspect in the murder of two of his Taiwanese language school classmates in Tokyo, was cremated in the Japanese city of Nagoya yesterday. Chang’s parents bought a pair of shoes as their last gift for their son before his cremation. They were scheduled to return to Taiwan with Chang’s ashes this morning. Lin Chih-ying (林芷瀅) and Julia Chu (朱立婕) were stabbed in their dormitory on Jan. 5. Chang slashed himself with a knife and bled to death on Monday while in police custody after he was located by police at a theater in Nagoya. Japanese police said Chang admitted to killing Lin and Chu with a knife and that he was remorseful. The ashes of the two victims were brought back to Taiwan by their families on Wednesday following their cremation in Tokyo.
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