■ Public Security
IPR-case rewards upped
The National Police Admin-istration (NPA) decided yesterday to increase rewards to officers who substantially contribute to cracking cases of copyright infringement. The initiative is aimed at accelerating efforts to protect intellectual property rights (IPR), NPA officials said. The rewards will be in the form of points that accrue toward increased bonuses and promotions for officers. Rewards to indivi-duals and groups providing information that lead to the arrest of copyright violators will also be raised sub-stantially. Officers who bring in violators and seized counterfeit products will be rewarded based on indivi-dual cases and the value of the goods seized. Aviation and harbor police and coast guard forces will also be included in the new IPR-protection drive.
■ Society
Adopters avoid challenges
Families in Taiwan are generally less interested in adopting mentally chal-lenged or physically disabled children than their foreign counterparts, a Catholic welfare service group said yesterday. The Cathwel Service said it receives an average of 4,000 applications annually from local families wanting to adopt children. "But most local families only want to adopt healthy child-ren with uncomplicated family backgrounds," a spokeswoman said, adding that disabled children in their care are mostly adopted by foreign families. Sixty-one children at the Cathwel nursery home were adopted by foreign families last year. "Fifty-six percent of them were disabled children," the spokeswoman said, adding that Dutch families accounted for 53 percent of the adopters, followed by Canadians, Americans and French.
■ Public security
Terror-funding seminar held
The British Trade and Cultural Office and the Mini-stry of Justice co-sponsored a seminar yesterday on tackling terrorist funds and money laundering for financial experts, local prosecutors and anti-money-laundering officials. Vice Minister of Justice Yen Da-ho (顏大和) and trade office director-general Derek Marsh spoke at the opening ceremony. Among those present at the seminar was Barry Rider, director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London, as well representatives from the banking industry and the Ministry of Finance.
■ Diplomacy
Taichung seeks sister city
Taichung will seek sister city relations with the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, according to a proposal passed yesterday by the city government. Officials of the city's Bureau of Civil Affairs said that San Pedro Sula is the second-largest city in Honduras, a hub for tourism in northern Honduras and controls about 65 percent of that nation's agricultural, industrial, busi-ness and service industries. Taiwan-ese investment in northern Honduras is growing rapidly. There are about 13 textile and garment factories and tuna-fishing operations owned by Taiwanese there. It is expected that three more garment factories will be set up by the end of the year.
■ Transportation
Work on new freeway to start
Construction of the pro-posed Suao-Hualien freeway will start at the end of this year, the Taiwan Area National Expressway Engineering Bureau said yesterday. Officials said the freeway, which will cost more than NT$60 billion (US$1.71 billion), is expected to be inaugurated in 2011.
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