WEATHER
Typhoon forming: CWA
A tropical depression is expected to form into a typhoon as early as today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the storm’s path remains uncertain. Before the weekend, it would move toward the Philippines, the agency said. Some time around Monday next week, it might reach a turning point, either veering north toward waters east of Taiwan or continuing westward across the Philippines, the CWA said. Meanwhile, the eye of Typhoon Kalmaegi was 1,310km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, as of 2am yesterday, it said. The storm is forecast to move through central Philippines before heading toward the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and Vietnam. It is unlikely to directly affect Taiwan. The northeast monsoon would today bring rain to the northern and northeastern regions, including Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Yilan County, the CWA added.
Photo courtesy of the Central Weather Administration
TRAFFIC
Toys seized to pay fines
A Chiayi City man’s vast collection of action figures was repossessed and sent to be auctioned over his failure to pay more than NT$60,000 in fines for “multiple” incidents of driving without a license, the Ministry of Justice said yesterday. Following an investigation into the financial situation of the driver, surnamed Tseng (曾), the Administrative Enforcement Agency’s Chiayi branch concluded that he likely did not have the means to pay his outstanding debts, the branch said in a statement. A deeper investigation found that Tseng had a vast trove of action figures, including once-popular figurines from the Japanese manga series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, stored in a warehouse from his former business, it said. Enforcement officials seized the items, which are to be auctioned in the lobby of the branch at 10am on Tuesday next week, it said.
CRIME
Woman sentenced for attack
A woman was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison for attacking a high-school student with a box cutter on the Taipei MRT last year, after the New Taipei City District Court found she suffered from schizophrenia, according to a judgement released yesterday. After completing her sentence, the defendant, identified as Wang Ching-ssu (王靖絲), must spend two years under court-ordered residential psychiatric supervision due to her condition, the court said in its verdict handed down on Oct. 22. On Nov. 8 last year, Wang attacked a student, surnamed Cheng (鄭), on a Bannan Line train with a box cutter, after experiencing auditory hallucinations and believing the student was a stalker, the court said. She struck Cheng in the head and neck, causing lacerations to his left cheek, neck and ear, before the student and bystanders restrained her, the court said. The ruling is subject to appeal.
TRANSPORTATION
HSR ridership hits record
Ridership on the high-speed rail reached 7.352 million passengers last month, a new monthly record amid a surge in travel demand during three consecutive long weekends, Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) said yesterday. Extended holidays for the Mid-Autumn Festival, Double Ten National Day and Retrocession Day spurred significant passenger traffic. The average daily ridership last month was 237,000, up about 11 percent from last year’s full-year average of 214,000, and 7.4 percent higher than the January-to-September average of 221,000, THSRC said.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
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