■ POLITICS
Chiayi commissioner bailed
Chiayi County Commissioner Chen Ming-wen (陳明文) was released last night on NT$3 million (US$90,000) bail. Chen was detained on Oct. 28 over alleged corruption after the Chiayi Prosecutor’s Office appealed the district court’s earlier decision to grant him bail. Chen began a hunger strike at a detention center on Nov. 11 and was taken to Chiayi Veterans Hospital on Nov. 17. He resumed eating on Wednesday after his wife persuaded him to give up his hunger strike and was released from hospital at around 5:30am yesterday. Prosecutors then visited him at the detention center and questioned him for the first time since his detention. After questioning, prosecutors filed a bail request to the Chiayi District Court at 4:45pm, which was then granted. Chen is suspected of revealing to a favored bidder the lowest tender offered for a sewer project in the county’s Minhsiung Township (民雄).
■ Environment
Activists want carbon tax
A group of environmental activists urged the government yesterday to impose a carbon tax on companies using fossil fuels to help control emissions of carbon dioxide in Taiwan.Some 10 environmental protection groups, led by the Green Party Taiwan, launched a protest at the headquarters of Formosa Plastics Group in Taipei City in a bid to push the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases to reduce emissions. Green Party Taiwan secretary-general Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) said Formosa Plastics Group was the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in Taiwan, averaging 67.58 million tonnes of emissions per year, or 27 percent of the country’s total. If the potential carbon dioxide emissions of Formosa Steel, a planned subsidiary of the group that is still awaiting government approval, were added to the total, the conglomerate’s carbon dioxide emissions would constitute one-third of all of Taiwan’s greenhouse gas emissions, Pan said.
■ Transportation
Line to suspend services
Services on the Taipei City MRT system’s Xiaobitan Branch Line will be halted during off-peak hours between Dec. 10 and June 9 next year to accommodate construction of the Xindian train depot, the city government’s Department of Rapid Transit Systems announced yesterday. The decision was made to adjust the operating schedule on the Xiaobitan Line, which is a branch line of the Xindian Line, to allow construction to be carried out during daylight hours. Train services will be halted on the line between 9am and 4pm each day during the six-month period, the department said. For the convenience of passengers who use the line, free shuttle bus services between Xiaobitan Station and Qizhang Station will be offered during the period. Information on the bus services will be posted on the Web sites of the department and related agencies from Tuesday.
■ Events
Church to hold concert
The annual Christmas benefit concert by the International Community Choir will be held tomorrow at 4pm at the Mother of God Church in Taipei’s Tianmu district. Directed by Joan Pipkins, who was trained at Julliard School, a world-renowned performing arts conservatory in New York, the ladies are expected to perform a selection of songs to usher in the holiday season. All proceeds from the concert will go to St Anne’s home, which houses children with special needs. For tickets or details of the event, contact: internationalchoir@gmail.com.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
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