■ Weather
Typhoon on its way
Typhoon Imbudo, moving in a westerly direction from Guam, is forecast to affect local weather patterns directly or indirectly from Tuesday until Friday, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The bureau said there was a good chance that Imbudo would make a direct hit on Taiwan island and that it would bring heavy rain to eastern Taiwan on Tuesday. The weather will remain cloudy and hot throughout the country over the weekend, with temperatures reaching 35?C in northern Taiwan and 34?C in central and southern Taiwan. There will be scattered showers and thunderstorms in mountainous areas over the next two days, according to weathermen.
■ Crime
Pizza brothel raided
Taipei police have cracked a brothel which used a pizza delivery service as a front and delivered prostitutes like pizza to clients, police said yesterday. "One of our policemen saw a tiny ad stuck on a roadside motorbike, saying: `Do you like pizza? You can eat it in our store, or we can deliver it to you.' There was also a telephone number," a policeman at the Chengchung Police Station said. "We thought it was suspicious and phoned them, and realized it was a brothel, so we raided it last night," he added. Police arrested four prostitutes, two clients and the manager. Prostitution is not illegal but brothels must be licensed. Underground brothels and advertising for custom is illegal.
■ Politics
Cabinet says no new taxes
The Executive Yuan has no intention for the time being of raising taxes to finance its many promises, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. In response to criticism that the administration of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is borrowing money to woo voters with pork-barrel politics, the Executive Yuan said its promises to raise pensions for farmers and to help local governments pay the lump-sum retirement payments for teachers will be financed from the government budget. These promises are actually the government's existing policies and the Executive Yuan is only reiterating these policies. The opposition's criticism that these promises were made to boost Chen's re-election bid is groundless, the Executive Yuan said.
■ Crime
Minister raids nightclub
Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲), National Police Administration (NPA) Director-General Chang Si-liang (張四良) and the NPA's Criminal Investigation Bureau Commissioner Hou You-yi (侯友宜) yesterday led a team of local police officers to raid the Lion King, the biggest nightclub in Taiwan. Yu, Chang and Hou arrived at the nightclub around 1am in a raid supposedly to search for Ecstasy. No illegal drugs were found at the scene, although the owner was fined NT$300,000 for violating the Architecture Law (建築法). The police said that the Lion King illegally tore down a wall inside the building which could compromise the structure during an earthquake. The owner of the nightclub was told to restore the wall within a month or the authorities would fine him again. With a dance floor big enough to accommodate 3,000 revellers, the Lion King has also been linked with Ecstasy use, although the police have never found any there. When Hou was Taoyuan County Police Department commissioner, he accompanied Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) on a raid of the club on Aug. 3 last year.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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