■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.
Hong Kong-based American singer-songwriter Khalil Fong (方大同) has passed away at the age of 41, Fong’s record label confirmed yesterday. “With unwavering optimism in the face of a relentless illness for five years, Khalil Fong gently and gracefully bid farewell to this world on the morning of February 21, 2025, stepping into the next realm of existence to carry forward his purpose and dreams,” Fu Music wrote on the company’s official Facebook page. “The music and graphic novels he gifted to the world remain an eternal testament to his luminous spirit, a timeless treasure for generations to come,” it said. Although Fong’s
China’s military buildup in the southern portion of the first island chain poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, a defense analyst warned. Writing in a bulletin on the National Defense and Security Research’s Web site on Thursday, Huang Tsung-ting (黃宗鼎) said that China might choke off Taiwan’s energy supply without it. Beginning last year, China entrenched its position in the southern region of the first island chain, often with Russia’s active support, he said. In May of the same year, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) force consisting of a Type 054A destroyer, Type 055 destroyer,
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
Taiwan is planning to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based X-ray imaging to customs clearance points over the next four years to curb the smuggling of contraband, a Customs Administration official said. The official on condition of anonymity said the plan would cover meat products, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, large bundles of banknotes and certain agricultural produce. Taiwan began using AI image recognition systems in July 2021. This year, generative AI — a subset of AI which uses generative models to produce data — would be used to train AI models to produce realistic X-ray images of contraband, the official
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