■DEFENSE
Ma consoles Ting family
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) traveled to Hualien yesterday to pay his respects to fighter pilot Major Ting Shih-pao (丁世寶), who disappeared during a routine training flight in waters off the coast of the eastern county in early March. Ting’s body and the F-16A Fighting Falcon jet he was flying were never recovered despite an extensive search by the Coast Guard and the Ministry of National Defense, which dispatched several helicopters, aircraft, patrol ships and naval vessels to comb the area for days. Ma consoled Ting’s family members and presented a medal of honor for the lost pilot. Ma also promoted Ting to the rank of lieutenant colonel posthumously. Officials believe that the 34-year-old Ting, who had a total of more than 1,200 hours of flight time, lost his bearings during the training flight and crashed into the sea.
■CRIME
Police hunt for naked rider
Tainan police were looking for a man who rode his motorbike naked through the city’s main streets for one hour on Monday, local TV reports said yesterday. The man, aged between 30 and 40, wore only a helmet as he drove around in a light drizzle caused by Typhoon Jangmi, local cable TV stations TVBS and ETTV reported. Although most people stayed home because of the typhoon, many still saw the naked motorist and took photos with their phone cameras, the TV reports said, broadcasting a video clip that showed the man riding a motorbike and sometimes honking his horn. Police suspect the man is an exhibitionist and plan to charge him with public indecency, the TV reports said.
■CRIME
MOFA warns on Somalia
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday cautioned Taiwanese fishermen to stay away from the waters around Somalia after an Ukranian boat was seized by pirates in the region recently. The ministry said that despite the high security risk, many Taiwanese fishermen were attracted to Somalia and its surrounding region because of its fertile tuna hunting ground. A Taiwanese vessel was hijacked by Somalian pirates in November and was held for six months, ending with the payment of a high ransom. One Taiwanese crew member was killed during the ordeal.
■CRIME
Former envoy charged
The Control Yuan yesterday charged George Liu (劉寬平), the nation’s former representative to Switzerland, with dereliction of duty for delaying the delivery of a letter on an alleged money-laundering case involving the former first family. Control Yuan member Chao Jung-yao (趙榮耀) said that Liu’s office held the letter, in which the Federal Department of Justice and Police of the Swiss Confederation requested assistance from Taiwan in July to check the bank accounts of the son and daughter-in-law of former president Chen Shu-bian (陳水扁), for more than one week before sending it to Taipei via ordinary mail rather than sending an urgent telegram. The Swiss authorities were alerted by Merrill Lynch Bank (Suisse) earlier this year when the bank suspected Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) and his wife Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚) of money laundering. “Liu had served as a legislator for three years before taking up the position in Switzerland ... He should have been very sensitive in this case,” Chao said. “His handlings were very inappropriate as it was not about the former president, but also the reputation of the Republic of China.”
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its