■CRIME
Alleged fraudsters nabbed
Police yesterday arrested two alleged members of a crime ring that disguises numbers of incoming phone calls. Members of the National Police Agency (NPA) and the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) accompanied Kaohsiung district prosecutors yesterday to make the arrests in Fengshan (鳳山市), Kaohsiung County. The pair were arrested in connection with operating computer equipment to assist fraudsters making calls, police chief Shen Chien-ren (沈建仁) said. The equipment can falsify phone numbers to simulate a fake number when the receiver sees the caller ID. It can also change the serial numbers of cellphone SIM cards to prevent investigators from tracking them. Police say this is the first time such equipment has been confiscated in Taiwan. Fraudsters typically instruct people to withdraw money from an ATM or fill out forms at a bank to transfer money to criminals’ bank accounts. Those who have received suspicious phone calls should verify the validity of the caller by calling back to see if the number reached the same caller, police said. People receiving fraudulent phone calls can report them by dialing the toll-free number 165.
■HEALTH
Physician’s Act amended
A Cabinet meeting yesterday approved an amendment to the Physician’s Act (醫師法) setting new conditions for individuals obtaining medical degrees abroad to practice medicine in Taiwan. Graduates from foreign medical schools will not be allowed to sit qualification examinations in Taiwan unless their degree certificates are authenticated by the Ministry of Education and they have successfully completed an internship. The amendment comes after a demonstration by medical students on Sunday that called on the government to address the problem of increasing numbers of students seeking medical degrees in eastern European countries that became members of the EU in recent years. In Taiwan, medical students must complete a seven-year course and a two-year internship before qualifying for license exams, while a medical student in Poland, for example, only needs to study for four years and is not required to do an internship.
■HEALTH
Two more H1N1 cases
The Central Epidemics Command Centers (CECC) yesterday announced another two confirmed swine flu cases, bringing the nation’s total of confirmed cases to 16. Both had recently returned from New York. CECC spokesman Shih Wen-yi (施文儀) said one was a 25-year-old graduate student who arrived in Taiwan on May 29. The other case is a 24-year-old businessman based in Manhattan. He arrived in Taiwan on Monday.
■HEALTH
Minister wants screening
Department of Health (DOH) Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) said yesterday that Taiwan should retain its policy of screening new migrant workers for hepatitis B, given that most work in close contact with their employers. Yeh was referring to a recent decision by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to revoke the policy of testing workers for hepatitis B on arrival in Taiwan. The center revoked the regulation based on the consideration that the disease can only be transmitted via blood or body fluids. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hou Tsai-feng (侯彩鳳) said the cancelation of hepatitis B testing of new migrant workers would put the country’s citizens at risk.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about
RSS