■ SOCIETY
ArticleText = "Student dies in school
A Taipei junior-high school student was found dead yesterday morning in his school's bathroom with a plastic bag over his head. Teachers think the boy might have committed suicide because of academic pressure but the police have not determined the cause of death. The boy, surnamed Liu, was a ninth grader in Sanmin Junior High School in Neihu District. Teachers described him as a good student who was well-liked by his peers. His teacher said that Liu had told his friends he was having a difficult time dealing with school pressure. Liu's mother said he was an obedient son who never ran away from home. The school is offering counseling services to the students to help them deal with the trauma. The city's Department of Education has told the school to help Liu's family with the funeral.
■ CRIME
Taiwanese pleads guilty
A trusted member of a close-knit Taiwanese community in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, entered guilty pleas on Monday to a series of rapes in which he used stun guns and chloroform to knock out the teenage daughters of his friends while they were home alone. Chien Tai-wu, a 50-year-old software designer, pleaded guilty in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court to two charges each of rape and attempted rape, five charges of aggravated burglary and one charge each of felonious assault and illegal use of a minor in nudity oriented material. Three charges of felonious assault and a charge of gross sexual imposition were dismissed. The judge set sentencing for Dec. 7. Wu was arrested in July and confessed when questioned by detectives. His trial was set to begin in January, but he changed his mind after a hearing last week in which the judge refused to throw out his statement to police.
■ SOCIETY
Taipower targeted
Hundreds of residents of Taipei's Jusheng Borough, Zhongshan District (中山), demonstrated in front of the Zhongshan Transformer Station yesterday to demand that Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) relocate the station. Many believe the station is responsible for a high cancer rate in the community. Borough chief Chen Hung-chang (陳鴻章) and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kuo Jeng-liang (郭正亮) said that if relocation is impossible, Taipower should convert the outdoor transformer station into an indoor one as soon as possible. "It is no coincidence that so many Jusheng residents have developed cancer," Kuo said. "Taipower should investigate this and compensate the residents accordingly." Station director Tsai Ta-tung (蔡大同) said the Zhongshan transformer is vital as it provides electricity for more than 10,000 homes and businesses. Relocation is scheduled in 2010, after the new Songshan transformer station opens, he said.
■ POLITICS
Ma pledges MRT expansion
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) pledged yesterday to expand Taipei's transportation network to Taoyuan and finish the construction of the MRT lines that link Taipei City and Taipei County in eight years if elected. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋) and Taoyuan County Commissioner Chu Li-lun (朱立倫) joined Ma at the MRT Yongning Station where he promised to budget NT$160 billion (US$ 4.9 billion) to expand the network. He also promised to open the MRT system linking Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Taipei City in four years.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
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