Parents of Suspect in Taipei Metro Stabbing Attack Offer Apology
The parents of the student – Cheng Jie – appeared in public for the first time yesterday to apologize for their son’s killing of four people on the Taipei MRT last week. The move comes amid calls for them to take some responsibility for the incident. Escorted by police, the 21-year old student’s parents wept...Continue reading
Cat Slips Through Taoyuan Airport Security in Luggage
Security at Taoyuan International Airport is in the spotlight once again, after an R.O.C. national flew to South Korea’s Incheon International Airport on May 24th with a live cat in his checked-in luggage. The Aviation Police Bureau yesterday admitted they were unaware of the incident until informed by Korean authorities. Police say initial investigations have...Continue reading
ICRT Ranks Second for Quality Among College Freshmen
International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT) has ranked second in the category of “high-quality radio” by students majoring in communications from six local universities. In a survey on first-year college students’ media consumption habits conducted by Fo Guang University‘s Lan-Yang newspaper, ICRT received 17 percent of the votes for providing “high-quality radio”, second to Hit FM‘s 20.5...Continue reading
6th Annual ICRT Bike Day in Taipei
More than 1,000 cyclists showed up on Saturday at Taipei’s Dadaocheng Wharf despite the threat of rain to attend ICRT’s first Bike Day of the year. Enrollment for one of the station’s most popular activities was filled in just a little over a week. ICRT’s General Manager Tim Berge kicked off the 16-kilometer bike ride...Continue reading
Taiwan Talk: T.C. Locke on “Barbarian at the Gate” (4/20/2014)
Listen Episode description In this episode we speak to author T.C. Locke about his new book “Barbarian at the Gate: From the American Suburbs to the Taiwanese Army,” which recounts his experience serving in the Taiwanese military in the mid-90s as a U.S. born Caucasian. After gaining citizenship in Taiwan in 1994 Locke spent two years...Continue reading
Details Emerge About MRT Stabbing Assailant
Details began to emerge yesterday about 21-year old college student – Cheng Jie – who allegedly killed four aboard a moving metro train in Taipei Wednesday. Some accounts describe him as a loner who had spoken of plans for doing “something big.” Cheng, a sophomore studying environmental engineering, transferred last September to Dong-hai University after...Continue reading
Assailant Ordered Detained in Taipei MRT Stabbing
Twenty-one-year old student – Cheng Jie – was ordered detained by the New Taipei District Court earlier this morning after a 20-minute hearing. Cheng was arrested by police and metro staff at Jiangzicui MRT Station yesterday afternoon after killing four people and injuring 21 others on an MRT train. The train was traveling into Banqiao from...Continue reading
Record Rainfall Recorded in Taipei
Rainfall in Taipei city has set a new May record, seeing the highest rainfall during the month in nearly one hundred years, when the Taipei Observatory was first established. The Central Weather Bureau says between midnight and 3 P.M. today, Taipei received 193 millimeters of rain, an astonishing amount. The CWB also says that the...Continue reading
Golden Melody Nominees Announced
The nominees for this year’s Golden Melody Awards were announced Tuesday, with Singaporean singer-songwriter Tanya Chua hoping for her fourth Best Mandarin Female Singer win. Chua will compete in the category with Taiwan’s Faith Yang and Jia Jia, Malaysia’s Penny Tai and Hong Kong’s Denise Ho. The five nominees for Best Mandarin Album are Li...Continue reading
Legislature Passes New Tax Rates for Non-Owner Occupied Houses
Amendments to the House Tax Act have cleared the Legislative Yuan and will raise the tax rate for non-owner occupied residential houses to 1.5 and 3.6 percent of the unit’s value. The current rules levy tax rates of between 1.2 and two percent on all residential houses without making a distinction between owner-occupied and non-owner...Continue reading
Taxi Fares in Taipei, New Taipei and Keelung May Increase
The Taipei City government’s Public Transportation Office says it is reviewing a proposal to hike taxi fares in Taipei, New Taipei and Keelung. The statement follows calls by the Business Association of Taipei Taxi Transportation to increase fares due to rising fuel costs. Under the plan, the basic rate will remain at 70 NT –...Continue reading
NTU Professor Liu Ko-qiang on Housing Prices
Professor Liu Ko-qiang, from National Taiwan University’s Building and Planning Research Foundation, talked to me on housing prices today. He agreed that the housing prices in Taipei city are unreasonably high in relation to people’s incomes, and that there are complicated reasons behind this. One major reason is that people here have “overiding aspirations” for owning...Continue reading
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