SOCIETY
Driver detained after crash
The Yunlin District Court yesterday approved a motion filed by local prosecutors to detain a tour bus driver involved in a deadly traffic accident, due to the severity of the incident. Yunlin prosecutors applied to detain the driver, surnamed Chen (陳), 63, after the tour bus he drove collided with a car on the southbound lane of the Formosa Freeway (National Freeway No. 3) near Douliou (斗六) in Yunlin County a day earlier. Four people were killed and 22 weer injured in the accident. The prosecutors said two of the dead were a 47-year-old woman surnamed Chu (朱) and her 11-year-old son, surnamed Lai (賴), who were on the tour bus to go to an amusement park in Yunlin. The two other fatalities were the driver of the car, also surnamed Chen (陳), and a passenger surnamed Lo (羅), aged 61, prosecutors said. Prosecutors expressed concern the bus driver could flee justice and collude with witnesses to fabricate testimony, so they filed a motion with the court for his detention. At the hearing, the tour bus driver admitted his negligence had caused the accident. The court subsequently approved the request to detain the 63-year-old.
CRIME
Taichung police seize guns
Two men have been arrested in connection with a large cache of illegal firearms and ammunition seized from a vehicle in a police stakeout operation in Taichung on Saturday. Police said that officers recovered rifles, shotguns, submachine guns and bullets from a vehicle driven by one of those arrested, a man surnamed Tsai (蔡). Police added that Tsai had been waiting for a second man, surnamed Huang (黃), a fugitive previously convicted of weapons and drug offenses, who was also arrested at the scene. Police said they had received tip-offs about the mobile armory, and formed a task force to find and arrest Huang and Tsai. Officers shot the tires on Tsai’s vehicle, after he rammed into two parked cars while attempting to flee, police said. Huang and Tsai are being investigated by the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office for alleged violations of the Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例) and the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act (毒品危害防制條例).
CRIME
Two indicted for remittances
Two people who allegedly helped Filipino workers in Taiwan make overseas remittances were indicted for violations of a domestic banking law by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday. The prosecutors’ office said it indicted two suspects, surnamed Chan (詹) and Wu (吳), for making foreign remittances, which only banks are allowed to do in Taiwan according to the Banking Act (銀行法). The prosecutors asked the court to confiscate any illegal gains they made. In the indictment, prosecutors said Chan and Wu set up a company in 2019 and developed a third-party application called “FastPay” targeted at Filipino workers in Taiwan to help them make underground remittances. The app enabled migrant workers to enter the amount of money they wanted to remit, and pay a commission of NT$99 (US$3.06) to NT$149 for each transaction at convenience stores, the prosecutors said. The amount would be transferred to the users’ designated bank accounts in the Philippines. The two suspects handled over NT$4 billion in transactions and made a total of NT$70.59 million in profits from July 1, 2020 to Nov. 4 last year, the indictment said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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