CRIME
Suspect commits suicide
The Kinmen County Police Department yesterday said a suspect in a robbery and kidnapping case had committed suicide. The suspect, surnamed Chen (陳), was wanted in connection to a robbery and kidnapping involving Kincheng Township (金城) representative council head Chen Tien-cheng (陳天成), police said. The suspect was found in Kinning Township (金寧) but refused to open the door when arrived. Officers said they heard a gunshot from inside the residence. Chen was taken to hospital, but the doctors pronounced him dead at 1:43pm yesterday. Police have already arrested two other suspects in connection with the case and two others are still at large.
Photo: Taipei Times
CRIME
Police uncover 4kg of drugs
Taitung County authorities have seized about 4kg of amphetamine, the largest haul of illegal drugs in 10 years in the county, Taitung police said on Thursday. Four people were arrested during a raid in May last year on suspicion of drug possession, Taitung County Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation deputy head Yu Cheng-ting (尤正廷) said. Although only 166.9g of amphetamines were seized in May, one suspect, surnamed Lin (林), said the remaining about 3kg had been sold. Prosecutor Teng Ting-chiang (鄧定強) said he was highly skeptical of Lin’s claim and asked the Taitung police to continue their investigation. After more than a year, Taitung and Taichung police finally found the stash in a Taichung neighborhood, where Lin rented a house, as well as a modified gun with three bullets, Yu said.
Transport
THSRC offers free rides
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) on Friday announced that it has expanded its partnership with EVA Air Corp to offer a free shuttle service to the high-speed railway station in Taoyuan. Travelers flying to Europe, Australia, New Zealand or North America on EVA Air and commuting on the high-speed rail from southern Taiwan will be eligible for a free return ticket to Taoyuan, the company said. The deal is reserved for passengers commuting from Kaohsiung, Tainan and Chiayi to Taoyuan and flying with EVA Air or China Airlines, which last month partnered with THSRC. EVA Air, UNI Airways Corp, China Airlines, Mandarin Airlines and China Eastern Airlines passengers can get a 20 percent discount on high-speed rail tickets, THSRC said.
GEOPOLITICS
Stephen Young slams China
Former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director Stephen Young on Friday said Beijing has made a mistake by not reaching out to Taiwan. China’s attempt to bully President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) demonstrates a lack of foresight, Young said at a news conference after a Taiwan-US relations forum in Taipei. He said Tsai has many domestic challenges to face and will not change her focus because of Beijing. Beijing’s approach toward Taiwan and Hong Kong only make Taiwanese think that China is not trustworthy, he said. China’s proposed “one country, two systems” model for unification with Taiwan has been unsuccessful in Hong Kong, making it hard to win the trust of Taiwanese, Young said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater