■ TRANSPORTATION
Wenhu track catches fire
The Wenhu Line on Taipei City’s MRT system experienced another problem yesterday when a track caught fire. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said the incident happened at Wende station at 1:38pm. Service was interrupted and shuttle buses were offered to commuters between Jiannan Road and Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center stations. Service resumed at 2:16pm when back-up systems switched on. Preliminary investigations showed a 50cm cable had burned. TRTC said it needed more time to determine what caused the fire and how many passengers were affected. The Wenhu Line, an extension of the Muzha Line, was inaugurated in July last year and has since suffered more than 100 malfunctions. The first major incident happened on July 10, when a power outage brought the line to a halt, stranding approximately 700 passengers on trains between stations and forcing them to walk to nearby stations along the tracks.
■ DIPLOMACY
St Kitts post upgraded
The Federation of St Kitts and Nevis has upgraded its representative to Taiwan from charge d’affaires to resident ambassador. Jasmine Huggins, St Kitts’ first ambassador to Taiwan, presented her letters of credit to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday in Taipei. Huggins said at a reception later that her new appointment as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary signals a deepening of the friendship between Basseterre and Taipei and is a significant milestone in her diplomatic career. “When I was asked to come to Taiwan to establish the [St Kitts] embassy … I could not have imagined that my acceptance of that grave responsibility would have taken me on this remarkable journey that would grant me such enormous professional and personal satisfaction,” she said.
■ JUSTICE
Groups to protest for Chen
Pro-independence groups announced yesterday they would hold a rally on May 8 — one day before Mother’s Day — against what they say is the unfair detention of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). The Taiwan High Court ruled last week to continue to detain Chen for another two months, despite attempts by family members to wire back NT$700 million (US$22.2 million) the family has frozen in Swiss bank accounts. The groups said the rally would be a personal appeal from Chen’s mother, Chen Lee Shen (陳李慎). “Chen Lee Shen was crying so hard after the ruling that she is going blind in one eye,” organizers said. The rally is scheduled to take place on both Ketagalan Boulevard and in front of the legislature’s side door on Jinan Road in Taipei City.
■ EDUCATION
KMT to reinstate scholarship
After a 10-year hiatus, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) could decide to reinstate the Sun Yat-sen scholarships, a party official said. President Ma and KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) could soon be invited to give oral tests to candidates, as both were recipients of the scholarship and have good command of the English language, said Lin Yung-juei (林永瑞), a KMT official in charge of administrative management. Ma, who doubles as KMT chairman, will meet KMT officials on Thursday for discussions on reinstating the scholarship, established in 1960 to send talented young people abroad for advanced studies in different disciplines. The plan is for 10 young men and women, under 40 years of age, to receive the scholarships worth NT$15 million this year, Lin said.
Three passengers and the assailant were reportedly injured in a knife attack on the Taichung MRT on Tuesday. The Rapid Transit Brigade of the Taichung Police Department is still investigating the incident, with no motive immediately apparent. Taichung Police Commissioner Lee Wen-chang (李文章) said that at least four people were injured in the attack, and the suspect has been taken into custody. The incident occurred at about 11:15am on a train car near Taichung City Hall Station. Witnesses reported seeing a man attacking others with a knife, while other passengers tried to grab his hair or fend him off with umbrellas. Three people were reportedly
‘OBNOXIOUS MAN’: The KMT’s Chen Ching-hui moved into Chung Chia-pin’s path atop the podium and reached for him before he grabbed at her legs with both hands Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) yesterday said he slipped and lost his balance, and did not know who was around him, after jumping onto the speaker’s podium at the legislature in Taipei. He apologized after a collision with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Ching-hui (陳菁徽), who moved to intercept him as he mounted the podium. There was pushing and shoving when the session started in the morning as KMT lawmakers attempted to block access to the podium to shield Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) so he could preside over the session. Video footage showed Chung step on a chair and
Schools in Keelung and four New Taipei City districts are to be closed to the public until Wednesday, as police continue searching for an escaped patient convicted of attempted murder. The New Taipei City Government on Tuesday decided to close campuses in Wanli (萬里), Sijhih (汐止), Pingsi (平溪) and Rueifang (瑞芳) districts to outsiders, as the patient was last spotted taking a bus toward Rueifang from Keelung. Police patrols have been increased near schools, the city government said, advising students to travel in groups and not linger near campus. The Keelung City Government earlier announced that campuses and local representative offices in the
Taipei police on Saturday arrested 24 female Thai tourists on suspicion of working as hostesses and engaging in illegal activities at an underground bar in Zhongshan District (中山), the distict’s police precinct said in a statement yesterday. The police also arrested five other people involved in the operation, including the 29-year-old bar owner surnamed Chiang (蔣), and 17 customers, the statement said. The 24 Thai women were fined an undisclosed amount in accordance with the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) by the police and transferred to a National Immigration Agency (NIA) special brigade in Taipei for repatriation to Thailand. The cases of