■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.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by