COMMERCE
Bookstore expanded
Eslite Spectrum Corp’s outlet in the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park in Taipei is to remain open around the clock, starting yesterday, nearly one month after the company closed its flagship Xinyi outlet. The Songyan outlet bookstore has been renovated and expanded to 1.5 times its original size, while its stock of books has been increased threefold, since the Xinyi all-hours store closed on Dec. 24 last year, Eslite Spectrum Corp senior director Chang Hsiao-ling (張曉玲) said. Since then, the number of customers at the Eslite Songyan store has tripled, and the increase is expected to continue with the launch of the outlet’s all-hoursoperations, she said. Usually, the Songyan store attracts about 2 million customers per year, Chang said, adding that she estimates the number would reach 6 million this year.
Last year, the number of customers at the Songyan outlet surged to 8 million, she said, attributing the sharp increase to the return of the Taiwan Lantern Festival to Taipei for the first time in 23 years and the opening of the Taipei Dome near the outlet.
With the start of all-hours operations at the Songyan outlet, the store’s annual revenue is likely to mirror the expansion of its book stock, rising this year by an estimated 30-40 percentage points, Chang said.
CRIME
Taichung pair found dead
Taichung police are investigating the cause of death of a divorced couple found inside a parked vehicle at a local fast food restaurant in Nantun District (南屯). When emergency responders first arrived at the scene after police received a report at 1:34pm on Friday, they found two people without vital signs inside the vehicle, police said. The woman, who was in the driver’s seat, had multiple lacerations to her face and neck, police said, adding that the male passenger seated beside her had similar wounds. The deceased were later identified as a 67-year-old man surnamed Chi (戚), who was found to have had a record of domestic violence, and a 55-year-old woman surnamed Chen (陳). The two were a formerly married couple who had signed a divorce agreement last week and appeared in a family court on Thursday, police said. Based on video footage taken from surveillance cameras in the area, Chi and Chen arrived at the fast food restaurant in their vehicle at around 8am on Friday and parked there for an extended period of time. An employee of the restaurant noticed the car had not left by 1pm and came to check on them, only to see the two individuals with stab wounds.
CRIME
Waste dumpers jailed
Twenty-one people in a crime group posing as landscapers have been convicted by the Changhua District Court of illegally dumping waste and given sentences of between four months and five years in jail. The three main suspects were sentenced to five years, two years and 30 months by the court. The other 18 members of the crime group, including drivers, accountants and landowners, received jail sentences ranging from four to six months, the ruling said. The verdict can be appealed. Three landscaping companies started by the defendants were also collectively fined NT$17 million (US$540,712) for violating the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物處理法). The ruling said the group rented large swaths of farmland and fish farms in Taichung, Changhua, Yunlin and Chiayi counties under the names of the landscaping companies to deal with waste they were paid to dispose of.
They rented large tractors to carry and dispose of the industrial waste, including plastic, plywood and insulation materials, while claiming it was compost. Overall, they dumped 24,086 metric tonnes of waste illegally on just over 6 hectares of farmland, affecting the normal use of the land, the ruling said. The Changhua District Prosecutors Office discovered the crime in 2022.
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
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
Restarting the No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant would take up to 18 months, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said today. Kuo was answering questions during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee, where legislators are considering amendments to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條) amid concerns about the consequences of the Pingtung County reactor’s decommissioning scheduled for May 17. Its decommissioning is to mark the end of Taiwan’s nuclear power production. However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of existing
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