■ Society
Hon Hai boss' wife dies
Lin Shu-ru, (林淑如), the wife of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) died at National Taiwan University Hospital on Saturday night of liver and lung failure after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 55. Lin had been battling breast cancer for three years. She made her last public appearance last July hand-in-hand with her husband at the wedding of their son Gou Shou-cheng (郭守正). Forbes magazine claims Terry Gou is the country's wealthiest man. He was ranked 170 on the magazine's list of the world's billionaires.
■ Politics
DPP seeking young experts
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said that the party will consider young law experts and academics as priority nominees for the National Assembly elections. Su said Yeh Chun-jung (葉俊榮), chairman of the Cabinet's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission and Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission Chairman Hsu Chih-hsiung (許志雄) will both be nominees. Both have specialized in law and constitutional study. Su also said that if the DPP's local party branch nominates him as a candidate, he would ask the party to put his name last on the list of nominees.
■ Cross-strait ties
Kinmen plans giant Guanyin
Kinmen wants to build a giant statue of Guanyin (Avalokitesvara in Sanskrit) to serve as an inspiration for peace across the Taiwan Strait. Residents yesterday elected Kinmen County Commissioner Lee Chu-feng (李炷烽) to chair a committee supervising the building and management of a 36m-high white stone statue of the bodhisattva. Residents envisage building the island into a mecca for Buddhists, which will also serve as a "torch of peace" for people across the Taiwan Strait, Lee said after attending the first meeting of the committee. Buddhists in Kinmen decided last June that the island should build the Guanyin using white stone from Quanzhou, Fujian Province, to make the statue a Kinmen landmark. In a very short period of time, nearly NT$18 million (US$580,000) million) was raised for the project. Participants at yesterday's meeting, however, failed to reach a consensus on where the statue should be established. At least four township chiefs lobbied for their towns to be chosen.
■ Cross-strait ties
Women stage protest
A group of women organized by the Non-war Action Alliance of Taiwan protested in front of the Legislative Yuan yesterday against Beijing's proposed "anti-secession" law. The demonstrators put up posters and chanted "no war" and "peace." Chou Shen-hsin (周聖心), convener of the alliance, said that almost all wars were initiated by men, and women -- who account for half of the global population -- were always the victims.
■ Tourism
Taipei expo promoted
A Taipei City mission, headed by Deputy Mayor Yeh Chin-chuan (葉金川), left for Toronto yesterday to promote the Taipei International Healthy City Expo 2005. City officials said that the delegation will head to to Indianapolis, Indiana and then Copenhagen, Denmark and Helsinki, Finland before returning home on Friday. The expo, which brought together the chiefs of 16 international cities in Taipei last year, is expected to attract 40 to 50 city chiefs from around the world this year, they said.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS