While the alleged kidnapping and murder of Greater Taichung-based businessman Shih Chia-chin (施家金) has again triggered public criticism of security in the city, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) yesterday said that it is only an isolated case.
The decomposing body of the 57-year-old Shih was found in a mountainous area of Greater Tainan late on Sunday, after his alleged abduction early on Aug. 18.
Hu said that he knows the case could be seen as additional “proof” that the city is not safe, but he stressed that the event is an isolated one and declared war on organized crime.
Citing public safety statistics, Hu said that from January until last month, only 75 major crimes were reported in Greater Taichung, compared with 194 in New Taipei City, 184 in Taipei, 171 in Greater Tainan and 135 in Greater Kaohsiung.
He added that Greater Taichung has the lowest crime rates among the nation’s five special municipalities.
Despite Hu’s statements, netizens yesterday questioned his ability to fight crime, saying that since March 2007, the mayor has “declared war on organized crime” 23 times, but major crimes still happen in the city.
According to an unpublished survey conducted by the Ministry of the Interior on public satisfaction with security in the fourth quarter last year, Greater Taichung ranked the worst among the five special municipalities.
According to the survey, up to 82.91 percent of Greater Tainan residents are satisfied with security in the city, 76.78 percent in Taipei, 73.64 percent in New Taipei City and 73.11 in Greater Kaohsiung, while satisfaction drops to 60.62 in Greater Taichung.
Past survey results also rank Greater Taichung last among the five special municipalities in all four quarters last year.
When the numbers were leaked to media outlets last year, Hu protested to the then-minister of the interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源), but Lee said he did not know how reporters got the figures.
Shih, the victim who made a fortune from the online gambling business, became a billionaire by investing in real estate and operating hypermarkets at home and abroad.
According to police, Shih returned to Taiwan from a trip to the US and was picked up by his chauffeur at the Taiwan Taoyaun International Airport. Instead of being taken home, Shih told his family to transfer NT$30 million (US$1 million) into a bank account designated by his kidnappers, police said.
The police later used surveillance cameras to determine that the chauffeur had two accomplices who abandoned Shih’s Mercedes-Benz in Greater Tainan.
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
RSS