■CRIME
Police begin crackdown
Public places providing “special entertainment services,” such as KTV lounges, massage parlors, pubs and video game arcades, were affected yesterday by a nationwide police crackdown on gangster activity. Many of these businesses in the Taipei and Kaohsiung metropolitan areas were found to have far fewer customers than usual during surprise early morning checks by police, local police said. The checks were part of a crackdown launched by the Ministry of the Interior on Thursday in an attempt to improve social order in the wake of recent public outrage at alleged police involvement in gang-related activities. The Kaohsiung City Police Bureau said its officers had raided 309 special businesses notorious as gangster hangouts, taking into custody more than 80 people suspected of violence or drug-related crime.
■DIPLOMACY
Wang plans ECFA review
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) yesterday said the Legislative Yuan has the freedom to decide what form it would use to review the proposed cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) after it is signed. Under the Constitution, the legislature could decide whether to review it article by article, Wang said, adding that lawmakers can seek to revise the content of the pact during the review. Wang said he will discuss the matter with Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義). On Thursday evening, Wang said the legislature, which went into recess on Tuesday, might hold a provisional session next month to review the ECFA. The legislature might also hold another extra session in August if the legislature fails to complete the review next month, he added. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government has hoped to ink the agreement with China this month, with both President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Wu having said that a signed ECFA would be subject to a legislative review before the agreement takes effect.
■HEALTH
Protein changes harm mice
A common type of protein modification may cause health problems, including osteoporosis and hair loss, according to the results of an international study led by Taiwanese scientists. The research, conducted on mice, reveals that defective palmitoylation resulted in hair loss, severe osteoporosis, cachexia, systemic amyloidosis and early death in the animals, Academia Sinica said in a statement released yesterday. Palmitoylation is a common protein modification that involves the addition of palmitate, a fatty acid, to proteins. The study found the defective palmitoylation was caused by a mutation in the Zdhhc13 gene. The study was published in the June 10 edition of international scientific journal PLoS Genetics.
■TOURISM
Alishan first-aid ready
The Department of Health (DOH) said it has recently set up two first-aid stations on Alishan (阿里山), one of the nation’s most popular tourist destinations, after more than 10 Chinese tourists died from poor health or acute disease while on tours. A first-aid station will also be set up at Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), another “must-see” attraction for Chinese tourists, DOH officials said. KMT Legislator Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞), said 17 Chinese tourists have died of non-accidental causes since Taiwan opened to cross-strait tourism in July 2008.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
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