■ Crime
US fugitive goes home
American murder suspect William Kimmick was escorted back to the US by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents yesterday. Agents from Guam and Kimmick took a late night Continental Airlines flight yesterday and will directly return to Vermont to close the case. Kimmick, an electronic technician and a Vermont native, fled to Taiwan on Jan. 25. The Vermont State Court announced that he was wanted for questioning in connection with the murder of his wife at his residence on Jan. 20. Accompanied by an American friend who is living in Taiwan, Kimmick turned himself in to the Hengchun Police Precinct on Feb. 8.
■ Health
Taipei lifts SARS measures
Taipei City Government's Health Bureau yesterday lifted the temperature-taking measure and mask requirements for entering municipal hospitals and organizations belonging to the city government. Since the Center for Disease Control (CDC) announced it was reducing the SARS warning to zero, SARS prevention measures could be lifted according to the CDC's regulations, bureau official Chiu Chan-hsien (邱展賢) said. But Chiu suggested that people who have fever should still wear a mask when seeing a doctor because it is flu season. However, Chiu said that although the vigilance level against SARS is lower, the public must remain on guard against avian influenza. Chiu said that the bureau was happy that the flu outbreak expected after the Lunar New Year failed to materialize, but added that because of the threat of avian flu, it will continue to ask those who work in schools, hospices and hospitals to monitor their temperatures daily.
■ Crime
Police catch dognappers
Eleven dogs of popular breeds were "kidnapped" yesterday while their owner was forced to pay a ransom of NT$271,000, but the police successfully rescued the dogs and arrested the suspects. According to the police, the victim, Kuo Chi-chiang (郭志強), owned a dog kennel in Taoyuan. A 37-year-old suspect, Lu Hung-yi (呂泓毅), and a 44-year-old suspect, Chien Hsin-yi (簡新億), realized that Kuo had several expensive breeds, so they decided to extort money from him. Lu called Kuo and said that he was working for SET-TV and would like to invite him and his dogs to a TV show. However, he needed Kuo to show him his dogs first. Lu arranged to meet Kuo at a restaurant in Taoyuan. Kuo left a golden retriever, a schnauzer and nine dachshunds in his car while he went to meet Lu at the restaurant. However, Chien stole his car, along with the 11 dogs while Kuo was away. To get his dogs back, Kuo ended up paying Lu and Chien NT$271,000 but he didn't get his dogs back until the police arrested the suspects and rescued his dogs yesterday.
■ Crime
Officials seize drugs
Customs officers reported yesterday that a large amount of contraband Chinese medicine had been seized a day earlier at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport's cargo terminal. The contraband included balms, anti-impotence pills, powdered heart-disease medicine and herbal extracts, packed in 11 boxes. Customs officers said that although the medicine could be obtained easily in China, they were banned from entering Taiwan because none of it had passed Department of Health tests. Much of the haul is expensive on the Chinese market, the customs officers said, adding that the total seizures were worth an estimated NT$10 million.
COLLABORATION: As TSMC is building an advanced wafer fab in Dresden, Germany, it needs to build a comprehensive supply chain in Europe, Joseph Wu said Taiwan is planning to team up with the Czech Republic to build a semiconductor cluster in the European country, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Friday. Wu, who led a Taiwanese delegation at the annual GLOBSEC Forum held in Prague from Friday to today, said in a news conference that Taiwan seeks to foster cooperation between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and its counterparts in Czechia. Such cooperation is expected to transform the country into one of the most important semiconductor clusters in Europe over the next three to five years, he added. As TSMC is building an advanced
A joint declaration by Pacific leaders was reissued yesterday morning with mentions of Taiwan removed after China slammed an earlier version as a “mistake” that “must be corrected.” After five days of talks in Tonga, a “cleared” communique was released on Friday that reaffirmed a 30-year-old agreement allowing Taiwan to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). However, the wording immediately raised the ire of Chinese diplomats, who piled pressure on Pacific leaders to amend the document. The forum reissued the communique without explanation yesterday morning, conspicuously deleting the paragraph concerning the bloc’s “relations with Taiwan.” “It must be a
A tropical depression in waters east of the Philippines could develop into a tropical storm as soon as today and bring rainfall as it approaches, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, while issuing heat warnings for 14 cities and counties. Weather model simulations show that there are still considerable differences in the path that the tropical depression is projected to take. It might pass through the Bashi Channel to the South China Sea or turn northeast and move toward the sea south of Japan, CWA forecaster Yeh Chih-chun (葉致均) said, adding that the uncertainty of its movement is still high,
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
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