Law enforcement personnel nationwide seized 2,213 illegal firearms during raids conducted over the past year as part of efforts to prevent violence from marring the Jan. 14 presidential and legislative elections.
According to statistics released by the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on Friday, since the National Police Agency launched its first nationwide crackdown on illegal firearms in February last year, the police have pursued 1,860 cases involving the illegal possession of firearms and detained 1,805 suspects.
During the latest operation, which began on Nov. 11, 225 suspects were detained in connection with illegal firearms possession, the statistics showed.
The nationwide crackdown on weapons was initiated last year by Prosecutor-General Huang Shyh-ming (黃世銘), who pledged to do his utmost to prevent violence from tainting the elections.
“A shooting on the eve of the presidential election in 2004, and one before the municipal mayoral elections in 2010, have shamed Taiwan’s democracy,” Huang said.
He was referring to the shooting of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) during their re-election campaign in 2004, and an incident in 2010, when former vice president Lien Chan’s (連戰) son, Sean Lien (連勝文), was shot in the face while stumping for a city councilor candidate in then-Taipei County. An innocent bystander was killed in the second incident.
To prevent more shootings, law enforcement personnel nationwide were instructed to crack down on violent crime and election gambling in the run-up to the Jan. 14 elections.
GOOD INFLUENCE: Kwan said his mother tutored him at home for a few years, saying that she had to protect his ‘creativity’ as his writing had suffered Director and coproducer of the Oscar-winning absurdist comedy-drama Everything Everywhere All at Once Daniel Kwan (關家永) on Sunday dedicated the movie to his Taiwanese mother, who he said supported his creativity growing up. “She is someone who sacrificed a lot for her kids,” Kwan, 35, said backstage at the Oscars. The movie, released early last year, received a commanding 11 nominations at the Academy Awards, and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, with whom he also directed the 2016 fantasy film Swiss Army
A domestically developed “suicide drone,” also known as a loitering munition, would be tested and evaluated in July, and could enter mass production next year, Taiwan’s weapons developer said on Wednesday. The yet-to-be-named drone was among nine drone models unveiled by the National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) on Tuesday. The drone has been dubbed the “Taiwanese switchblade” by Chinese-language media, due to its similarity to the US-made AeroVironment Switchblade 300, which has been used by Ukraine in counterattacks during Russia’s invasion. It has a range of more than 10km, a flight time of more than 15 minutes, and an electro-optical
Three people arrested earlier this year for growing cannabis plants with an estimated street value of nearly NT$20 million (US$652,507) in Chiayi County earlier this year could be sentenced to life in prison for breaching the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例), Taichung police said yesterday. A couple, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and suspect surnamed Hsu (徐) were found cultivating 91 cannabis plants on a farm in the county after law enforcement agents raided the site in the middle of January when they were about to harvest the field, Taichung police told a news conference. Taichung police said they were tipped off last year
HYGIENE KEY: The CDC reported two cases of enterovirus 71, which can cause serious complications, and as there have been no recent outbreaks, children are not immune Two cases of enterovirus 71 (EV71) were reported last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that it was a warning sign, as the virus has not been detected for more than a year. Parents are advised to remind their children to practice good hand hygiene, it said. Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉), director of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Center, said that 165,230 people visited a hospital for diarrhea last week, which is a high number. Most of the diarrhea case clusters were caused by norovirus infection, but there were also enterovirus cases, and weekly caseloads are slowly increasing, Guo said. Most of