CRIME
Three suspects returned
Three Taiwanese accused of fraud and illegal possession of firearms were repatriated from Macau yesterday to face charges, National Police Agency (NPA) officials said. The repatriation was jointly executed by the agency and the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department based on a joint crime--fighting mechanism between Taiwan and China, agency officials said. The suspects include a 61-year-old man, only identified with his surname of Chang (張), who has been wanted by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office since February last year on charges of fraud and forgery. Chang is suspected of tricking businesses in Taiwan out of a total of NT$100 million (US$3.48 million) before fleeing to China, the agency said. The other two suspects are a 48-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳) and a 43-year-old man, surnamed Hung (洪). They both are wanted on separate charges of violating the Act on Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例) and the Narcotics Endangerment Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例).
HEALTH
Concert focuses on autism
A large outdoor music concert and festival will be held in Taipei on Aug 13 to raise public awareness of autism, said the Kanner Support Group, a foundation dedicated to supporting families with autistic children. Well-known local artists, including Dream Girls, a band popular with teenagers, will be performing free of charge. Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said the event will give Taipei residents a chance to interact with those who suffer from autism, a neural disorder which is characterized by speech difficulties and impaired social skills. Jiang has a son with autism.
ENTERTAINMENT
County takes on violin record
The Changhua County Government on Thursday called on all violin students under the age of 18 to take part in an event in September that hopes to get 5,000 people to play their violins at the same time to break the Guinness World Record. To help promote the event, TV host Janet Hsieh (謝怡芬) and more than 100 schoolchildren staged a performance on Thursday. The mass performance will showcase the county’s musical education, said Changhua County Commissioner Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源), who added that it will also be a part of the celebrations for the National Games, to be held in the county from Oct. 22 to Oct. 27. The current record for mass violin playing was set in London in 1925 with 4,000 people taking part, Cho said.
DESIGN
Journal gains wide presence
Taiwan’s International Journal of Design has become the first of its kind in the world to be included in three authoritative international citation indexes at the same time, the National Science Council (NSC) said. The journal was included in the Science Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index this year. Founded in April 2007 by the Taiwan-based Chinese Institute of Design, the journal covers a range of design research areas from product design, visual design, interface and interactive design, to animation and game design, and construction and city design. As of April, the journal had received more than 500 essay submissions from 40 countries, but accepted only 79 of them. Its Web site, www.ijdesign.org, had been viewed more than 800,000 times by people from 200 countries and territories worldwide, with each of the published journals viewed more than 10,000 times.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
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