CRIME
Chen doesn’t have Parkinson’s
The Taipei Veterans General Hospital has run a series of tests on former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and has ruled out Parkinson’s disease as the cause of the hand tremors from which he is suffering, the hospital said on Wednesday. Doctors recommended that Chen be given medication and follow-up examinations on a regular basis. Chen, who is serving an 18-and-a-half-year prison sentence for corruption, has been at the hospital since Sept. 21 because of various ailments, including depression, enlargement of the prostate and urinary tract and prostate infections. He recently had tremors in his right hand, the hospital said. In addition to neurological examinations, Chen was given a tremorgram, head MRI and nuclear medicine imaging. The tests show that he did not have a stroke and does not have Parkinson’s disease, the hospital said.
CRIME
Court favors Su Chih-fen
The Supreme Court remanded a prosecutorial appeal over Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen’s (蘇治芬) acquittal on corruption charges and closed the case yesterday in accordance with the Fair and Speedy Criminal Trials Act (刑事妥速審判法). In 2008, Su was accused of accepting NT$5 million (US$171,900) in bribes to speed up approval of a landfill in the county by skipping an environmental assessment. Prosecutors had argued for a 15-year sentence and eight years suspension of civil rights. Su, who once led an 11-day hunger strike to protest against what she called political persecution, was acquitted in the first and second ruling. The Supreme Court said the first and second rulings did not violate the Constitution, did not contradict the Judicial Yuan’s interpretation of the law and did not run counter to precedent.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
RSS