CRIME
Northern schools reopen
School campuses in northern Taiwan reopened to the public during non-school hours yesterday, following the capture late on Wednesday of an escaped fugitive in New Taipei City. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Yilan County all announced the reopenings on Wednesday evening, after saying earlier in the day that the campuses would remain closed to the public for an indefinite period. The escaped fugitive, identified as Chien Yu-hung (簡郁紘), fled from a secure facility at a Keelung hospital on Sunday, where he was receiving court-ordered treatment for mental illness, police said. The 39-year-old was found guilty in August last year of attempted murder after assaulting a pedestrian with a glass bottle seven months earlier. Following Chien’s diagnosis of schizophrenia, the Taipei District Court sentenced him to five years of medical guardianship to be followed by a three-year prison sentence. On Monday, Chien was found to have taken the Taipei MRT from Longshan Temple Station to Xinpu Station, at which point the authorities stepped up the search in New Taipei City. The New Taipei City Police Department on Wednesday said that it arrested Chien at an apartment building in Sinjhuang District (新莊).
DIPLOMACY
MOFA, Austria begin talks
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said that it has been engaging in talks with the Austrian government after it was recently informed that Taiwan-issued international driver’s permits (IDP) would no longer be accepted in the EU country. Before the issue is resolved, the government has temporarily suspended accepting Austria-issued IDPs in Taiwan, MOFA deputy spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. The ministry confirmed a day earlier that it had been notified by the Austrian government of its decision to no longer accept Taiwan-issued IDPs. The Austrian Office in Taipei yesterday said that it had not been made aware of the Austrian government’s decision ahead of time, adding that it has since been relaying Taiwan’s reaction to Vienna, including the decision to suspend the acceptance of Austrian-issued IDPs. The office is still waiting for its government’s official response.
TRADE
Taiwan, UK sign MOU
Taiwan and the UK on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on organic agriculture cooperation, allowing the export of related products between both sides. Attending the signing ceremony at the British Office Taipei, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Minister Hu Jong-i (胡忠一) said the MOU between his ministry and the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs was groundbreaking for Taiwan’s agriculture sector. Under the MOU, the two sides are to recognize each other’s organic food and processed products, a prerequisite for Taiwan to allow such imports as regulated by the Organic Agriculture Promotion Act (有機農業促進法). Prior to Wednesday’s MOU, Taiwan had only signed similar treaties with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, India and Paraguay, Hu said. The UK has 480,000 hectares of organic farmland and has been eager to export its products to Taiwan since Brexit, he said, adding that among the products from the UK are coffee, beverages and processed food products. The European market in general is interested in Taiwan’s organic tea, rice flour, cookies made from mixed grains, processed fruit juice, organic rice and gluten-free grains, he said.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS