‘POLITE YOUNG MAN’:Murder suspect Kung Chung-an reportedly confessed to the killing. His former colleagues said he was well-mannered and performed his job well

Taipei Times
Date:  May 31, 2015
By: Jason Pan  /  Staff reporter

A second-grader whose throat was cut at an elementary school in Taipei died of her

wounds yesterday, less than a day after she was attacked.

The eight-year-old girl, who was identified only by her surname, Liu (劉), was found bleeding from her neck and unconscious on the floor of a bathroom on Friday afternoon and was rushed to Taipei Veterans General Hospital.

Medical staff said Liu showed no vital signs when she arrived at the hospital and had a 10cm cut to her neck that had severed her trachea and carotid artery.

Doctors resuscitated Liu and restored her vital signs after surgery, but she remained in critical condition. She was pronounced dead at 10:43am yesterday.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/30
By: Liu Chien-pang, Lung Pei-ning and Scully Hsiao

Taipei, May 30 (CNA) Judges in Taipei granted a request by prosecutors Saturday to detain a man who allegedly knifed to death a second-grader at a school in the nation’s capital.

Shihlin prosecutors requested that 29-year-old Kung Chung-an (龔重安) be taken into custody, a day after he entered Wenhua Elementary School in the suburban district of Beitou and slit the throat of an 8-year-old girl.

The girl, identified only by her surname Liu, was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m.

Liu showed no vital signs by the time she arrived at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital, the hospital said. She had a 10-centimeter cut to her neck with a severed trachea and carotid artery, the hospital said.     [FULL  STORY]

The 8 year old girl who was slashed yesterday in her school bathroom has reportedly died as a result of the
injuries she suffered allegedly by 29 year old surnamed Kung (龔) who was arrested yesterday after an attack at an elementary school in Taipei in which the eight-year-old girl’s throat was cut.

 

‘GOOD DEAL’:Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je told a city council meeting that buying back the Taipei Dome site and leasing it out again would be a ‘cost-effective’ measure

Taipei Times
Date: May 30, 2015
By: Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Former Taipei finance commissioner Lee Sush-der (李述德) of the Chinese

Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday rejected accusations of profiteering from the Taipei Dome project made against him by the Taipei Clean Government Committee, calling the investigation biased and politically motivated and urging the city government’s Department of Ethics to launch another probe into it.

A committee report earlier this month accused Lee and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of negotiating the Taipei Dome’s contract terms to allow illegal profiteering by Farglory Group (遠雄集團) during Ma’s tenure as mayor of Taipei. As Ma’s finance commissioner, Lee was responsible for much of the negotiation process.

In a written response, Lee rejected each of the committee’s allegations, saying that the city agreed to reduce Farglory’s royalties for site usage to zero in return for an increase to “feedback funds” the group was to pay out in benefits to city residents. The feedback funds, totaling NT$110 million (US$3.6 million) annually, were equal to about 2 percent of estimated yearly revenue for the Taipei Dome complex — far greater than the NT$2 million in usage royalties the city had originally sought, he said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/29
By: Emerson Lim and Kuo Chung-han

Manila, May 29 (CNA) If the South China Sea Peace Initiative proposed by Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is accepted, it could prove beneficial to China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei, said a columnist of the Manila Bulletin in an opinion piece on Friday.

The columnist Fred Lobo said the proposal could also be beneficial “to the United States which is protesting possible Chinese control of air and sea lanes” in the disputed sea.

Ma called on claimants of the South China Sea to shelve their disagreements on disputed territories and instead pursue negotiations on the joint development of resources in the initiative he presented in Taipei on Tuesday amid rising tensions in the region.     [FULL  STORY]

WITH A SMILE:The eight-year-old was undergoing emergency medical treatment as of press time. Reports said the suspect was angry at being jobless, or scolded

Taipei Times
Date: May 30, 2015
By: Jake Chung  /  Staff writer

A 29-year-old man surnamed Kung (龔) was arrested yesterday after an attack at an

elementary school in Taipei in which an eight-year-old girl’s throat was cut.

As of press time, the girl was undergoing emergency medical treatment at Taipei Veteran’s General Hospital.

Police said that according to preliminary investigations, Kung entered the grounds of Wenhua Elementary School (文化國小) in Beitou District (北投) at about 4pm yesterday, before allegedly walking up four flights of stairs to the girls’ restroom, pulling out a knife when he saw the girl about to enter the restroom and slashing her twice across the throat.

The girl was found lying in a pool of blood and was rushed to hospital, while Kung remained at the scene and was detained by police.

An angry crowd waited outside the police station and attempted to beat Kung as he stepped out of the police car, smiling.     [FULL  STORY][

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/29
By: Chiu Chun-chin and Ted Chen

Taipei, May 29 (CNA) The Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office on Friday charged 8

suspects including Wu Shang-chen (吳尚城), former head of the Xinwu branch of the Taoyuan Fire Department, for violation of the Anti-Corruption Act for tampering with safety inspections leading to the death of 6 firefighters in January.

Six firefighters perished in the line of duty on Jan. 20 while responding to a fire at a bowling center in the coastal Xinwu District of Taoyuan City.

The defendants include Wu, 5 other firefighters and 2 local government officials.

Investigators discovered that fire safety inspectors had recorded several inadequacies during routine inspections at the bowling center in March and May of 2011. However, at the request of Wu and a number of other firefighters, these shortcomings were expunged from the record.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date:  May 29, 2015
By: Lii Wen  /  Staff reporter

Several women’s advocacy groups are urging the public to boycott the Chinese-

language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) in protest against several articles that they said espoused discriminatory views against women.

Controversy raged following a recent spat between the Liberty Times and former TVBS news anchor Lee Yen-chiou (李艷秋), with Lee accusing the newspaper of using sexually offensive content to launch personal attacks against her.

The Liberty Times issued an official apology to Lee on Friday last week, but the women’s rights advocates said the apology lacked sincerity.

Led by the Taiwan Coalition Against Violence, several women’s groups yesterday filed a report against the Liberty Times with the Executive Yuan’s Gender Equality Committee, following a wave of criticism against the newspaper over the past week.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-29
By: Staff Reporter

The NT$3 billion (US$96.5 million) Super Lotto jackpot that opened on April 23,

scooped up by a single ticket, turned out to have been won by a group of four office employees in central Taiwan, reports our Chinese language sister paper China Times.

The lucky winners are colleagues at a privately-owned company in Taichung who collectively spent NT$300 (US$9.80) buying three sets of numbers. One of the tickets hit the biggest prize in Taiwan’s lottery history, said Huang Chih-I, general manager of the Taiwan Lottery Company.

The huge jackpot in the bi-weekly lottery had accumulated as 29 draws had passed with no winning 7-number combination in the 15 weeks running up to April 23.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/29
By: Huang Chiao-wen and Elaine Hou

Taipei, May 29 (CNA) Taiwan’s electricity reserve margin fell to its lowest level in 10 years on Friday due to people using air conditioners amid soaring temperatures and a reduced supply of electricity caused by failures in several generators at a power plant.

The electricity reserve margin fell to 3.17 percent of the amount generated by all of Taiwan’s power plants each day as of Friday afternoon, the lowest in a decade, Taiwan’s state-owned Taiwan Power Co. said.

An ideal reserve margin is typically at 10 percent although Taiwan has operated on margins much lower than the preferred margin in the past.

Electricity use soared on Friday as Taipei registered a daytime high of 35.7 degrees Celsius, the highest in the capital so far this year.     [FULL  STORY]