LABOR
CLA probes doctor’s death
The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) yesterday launched an investigation into the sudden death of a doctor in Greater Kaohsiung, who may have died from overwork. The Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital doctor, surnamed Lin (林), was found in a coma in his dormitory room on Thursday morning. He was declared dead after being rushed to an emergency room at Chang Gung for resuscitation. He was 31 years old. Lin’s family suspected that he died from overwork because of his habitual overtime and tight work schedule. However, the hospital said Lin could not have died from overwork because he had been assigned a normal workload. The council also said it had launched in March a mechanism for investigating suspected cases of death from overwork. As of July 31, the council had completed investigations into 22 cases, with seven confirmed as sudden death from overwork.
SOCIETY
Lovers’ Day events planned
Changhua County officials said it will launch a series of events to celebrate Chinese Lovers’ Day, which falls today. Chuang Jen-shun (莊仁舜), chief of Tianwei Township (田尾), said his office will decorate the verge of a main road in Tianwei with flowers and will organize a love song duet contest. The township office will also hold a “World War II kiss” contest, in which couples will imitate Life magazine’s famous World War II “Victory Kiss” and have their photograph taken, with prizes awarded to 10 of the couples. In Changhua City, singers and dancers are scheduled to perform at an event held by the city office. Changhua Mayor Chiu Chien-fu (邱建富) said the first 100 couples to arrive at the event will get their photos taken, which will then be printed on special commemorative mugs.
CRIME
Smuggling ring broken up
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) reported on Thursday that it had broken up an international people-smuggling ring with help from immigration agencies in the UK and Thailand. Five ring members were arrested in Taoyuan on Thursday as the result of an investigation that started after authorities received information that a man was helping to smuggle Chinese people to the UK through an airport in Thailand. The ring was active in Taiwan, China, Thailand, Malaysia and the UK and made between US$50,000 to US$70,000 per person, and took in more than US$687,995 in total, the agency said. According to the agency, the ring recruited employees through online job banks, posted advertisements in newspapers to buy passports for alteration and even wrote manuals for the illegal travelers, teaching them how to catch connecting flights and memorize the information in their fake passports.
CRIME
Customs officials probed
The Keelung Customs Office director and six customs officials were yesterday placed under investigation on suspicion of profiteering. Kaohsiung prosecutors yesterday led agents from the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau and the Agency Against Corruption to raid the offices and residences of customs director Tsai Chiu-chi (蔡秋吉) and six other officials. The seven were still being questioned by investigators at press time. Investigators said Tsai enjoyed a close relationship with Tonglit Logistics Co and was suspected of helping the company import restricted and banned items into the country. They said they also suspected Tsai and the other officials of helping Co-tech Copper Foil Co import restricted copper materials into the country.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry