CRIME
Pawnshop hit by bullets
A 17-year-old surnamed Liu (劉) yesterday turned himself in after shooting more than 50 bullets into a closed pawnshop in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城), the Tucheng Police Precinct said. Liu took a taxi to the pawnshop on Sichuan Road and at 8:52am shot in the store’s direction, leaving 65 bullet holes in the store’s steel shutters and nearby scooters, police said. He took the same taxi to the Banciao Precinct’s Daguan Police Station and turned himself in at about 8:55am, police said. Police cordoned off the area, and found a gun and two magazines at the site, they said. No one was injured, they said, adding that they are looking into potential motives.
Photo copied by Hsu Sheng-lun, Taipei Times
SOCIETY
Fire kills three people
A fire in a third-floor apartment in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) late on Wednesday killed three people and left one in critical condition, police said yesterday. Eight people, all from the same family, were pulled from the blaze by firefighters, who received a report of the incident on Danhai Road at 11:13pm. A 74-year-old woman, her four-year-old grandson and her 52-year-old son were pronounced dead at a hospital after out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, police said. The woman’s 58-year-old daughter, who also had a cardiac arrest, was resuscitated, but was in a critical condition, police said. Three other grandchildren, aged 19, 24 and 30, and the deceased man’s 42-year-old wife sustained minor injuries, police said. Authorities said they were investigating the cause of the fire.
CUSTOMS
Vitamins seized at border
A shipment of multivitamin tablets imported by warehouse club Costco was seized at the border after being found to contain residues of a banned preservative, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Tuesday. A total of 1,478.86kg of Webber Naturals’ nutritional tablets for men supplied by Factors Group of Nutritional Companies Inc was confiscated after sample testing on Tuesday detected 0.01g/kg of ethyl p-hydroxybenzoate, traces of which are not permitted in vitamins. The nation allows a limited permissible level of ethyl p-hydroxybenzoate in bean curd skin, dried tofu, soy sauce and non-
carbonated drinks, the FDA said, adding that it has increased random tests of vitamin products from Canada to 20 to 50 percent of shipments from 2 to 10 percent. Other items rejected and destroyed or returned by customs include 2,000kg of basmati rice from India, 27,600kg of fresh pumpkin from China and 780kg of marshmallows from the Philippines, it said.
EDUCATION
Universities to merge
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan Tech) and Hwa Hsia University of Technology have agreed to merge, the two institutes said on Tuesday last week. It would be the nation’s first merger between a public and private university, they said in a statement. The plan awaits approval by the Ministry of Education. Hwa Hsia would not enroll students for the 2023-2024 academic year and would close after the 2025-2026 academic year. Students whose graduation is delayed would be eligible to continue their studies under a special program arranged by the ministry, the statement said. To protect the rights and interest of faculty and staff, Hwa Hsia would provide severance and retirement packages upon termination of employment, while Taiwan Tech would hire some of them for project teacher and staff positions over the next four to five years based on employment contracts, it said.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
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