■TRANSPORTATION
Flights to resume: official
The nation’s second-largest international air carrier, EVA Airways, is scheduled to resume Taipei-Paris passenger flights from January in view of lower oil prices, a corporate source said yesterday. From Jan. 21, EVA will offer three weekly passenger flights, on Monday, Friday and Sunday, departing from Taipei for Paris, while the returning flights will depart from Paris for Taipei every Monday, Thursday and Saturday, the EVA official said. EVA suspended its passenger flight operations on the Taipei-Paris route last November after deficits caused by soaring oil prices. In addition to higher fuel prices, expensive costs for flying over Russian airspace also led the carrier to call a halt to the Taipei-Paris route, the official said. EVA will be using new Boeing 777-300ERs on the route, which will save up to 20 percent of the fuel consumed by the Boeing 747-400s that were used on the route prior to last November, the official said.
■ CRIME
Police take pity on thief
Police served a lonely man cake and sang happy birthday after arresting him for stealing a goose to celebrate on his own, an officer in charge said yesterday. Police in Pingtung’s Neipu Township (內埔) treated the 49-year-old suspect, surnamed Lee, on Thursday after they caught him making off with the bird from a betel nut plantation, said Hsiao Chi-liang (蕭吉良), second in command at the local police station. “It was his birthday and he stole it to celebrate, so we bought him a cake,” Hsiao said. “He was very surprised.” Officers took pity on Lee because he was poor, single and living in a shabby home, Hsiao said. Nevertheless, police have sent Lee’s case to the prosecutor’s office.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Protest targets expressway
Environmentalists yesterday protested in front of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), urging the government to take measures to halt the construction of the proposed Tanbei Expressway (淡北快速道路) in Taipei County. The expressway has generated considerable controversy for its potential damage to mangrove habitats near Tamsui Township (淡水) since it was proposed by the county government. Yesterday environmentalists said that not only had the county intentionally designed the blueprint of the expressway to take advantage of a loophole in environmental impact assessment regulations, it had also used a survey polling only 1,121 people about the road to say that the project had a 60 percent support rate. The groups said they had more than 13,000 signatures that opposed the expressway.
■ CRIME
Cops nab coin counterfeiter
A makeshift factory that specialized in counterfeiting NT$50 coins over the past 10 years has been discovered in Kaohsiung County, and its owner arrested, police announced on Thursday. The 61-year-old man, identified only by his family name Lin, told police he had been producing the fake NT$50 coins for a decade, injecting more that 500,000 fake coins, with a total face value of over NT$20 million, into the local market. Acting on a tip-off, a law enforcement team raided the factory in Luchu Township (路竹) on Wednesday and seized its owner and a large number of finished and unfinished fake coins and equipment. A Criminal Investigation Bureau spokesman said Lin sold the fake coins to accomplices who then laundered the money through retail market channels, night markets, convenience stores and automatic vending machines.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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