■ Society
Suicide rocks DPP family
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lan Mei-chin's (藍美津) youngest child, 29-year old Huang Hsin-yi (黃心儀), hung herself on Wednesday. Huang lived in a condominium next door to her parents with her older brother and his wife. Her suicide has raised specula-tion about whether Lan will continue to campaign for the December elections. Lan and her husband Huang Tien-fu (黃天福) have not commented on their daughter's death but their younger son, Taipei City Councilor Lan Shih-tsung (藍世聰), held a press conference to express the family's grief. Huang had been on medication for depression but the family said her condition was stable and there was no hint that she was thinking of suicide.
■ Weather
CWB monitors Nock-Ten
The Central Weather Bureau is monitoring Typhoon
Nock-Ten, bureau sources reported yesterday. Nock-Ten was centered some 1,900km southeast of Taiwan at 10am yesterday, moving northwesterly toward the island at a speed of 21kph. With a radius of 200km, the typhoon was packing maximum sustained winds of up to 180km per hour, meteorologists said. The forecasters don't know yet whether Nock-Ten will directly hit the country, but they expect it to bring tremendous amounts of rainfall in the following days regardless.
■ Health
US beef ban to be lifted
Ten months after banning
US beef imports to prevent mad cow disease from entering the country, health officials yesterday said they intend to lift the ban, pos-sibly by year's-end. After a cow tested positive for the disease in Washington state last December, the govern-ment placed a seven-year ban on US beef imports. After reviewing reports from the US Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health's 18-member committee confirmed that the
US has mad cow disease under control. Bureau of Food Safety Director Chen Lu-hung (陳陸宏) said the department will send officials to the US to verify their findings. If no further health risks are found, the department said it will lift the ban at the end of this year.
■ Society
New bike path to be built
The Taichung County Government announced yesterday that it will build a new route that will be the first in Asia to take advan-tage of an abandoned train tunnel. County Commissioner Huang Chung-sheng (黃仲生) said work on the path will begin next month and is expected to be finished early next year. He said that the project will give his county its third bike-only trail built along abandoned railroad tracks. The new route will start from the horse stables in Houli Township, enter the 1,269m No. 9 tunnel on the old Western Railway Line, pass over the 382m Hualiang Steel Bridge on Tachia River and end where the Tungfeng Green Corridor bike route begins.
■ Cross-strait Ties
No reward for Chinese police
The Criminal Investigation Bureau yesterday denied reports that Chinese police have received a share of NT$8 million in the NT$20 million bounty for the arrest of fugitives Hsueh Chiu (薜球) and Chen Yi-hua (陳益華). "The report was all wrong," a bureau official said, adding that no Chinese police applied for the bounty after Hsueh and Chen were repatriated on Sept. 23. He said it was a Taiwanese informant who gave the tip.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
‘JOINT SWORD’: Whatever President Lai says in his Double Ten speech, China would use it as a pretext to launch ‘punishment’ drills for his ‘separatist’ views, an official said China is likely to launch military drills this week near Taiwan, using President William Lai’s (賴清德) upcoming national day speech as a pretext to pressure the nation to accept its sovereignty claims, Taiwanese officials said. China in May launched “punishment” drills around Taiwan shortly after Lai’s inauguration, in what Beijing said was a response to “separatist acts,” sending heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated Lai. The May drills were dubbed “Joint Sword — 2024A” and drew concerns from capitals, including Washington. Lai is to deliver a key speech on Thursday in front of the Presidential Office
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week. To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday. School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs,
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