■ Culture
Corpse show too expensive
An arts promoter said yes-terday he may cancel a controversial art exhibit showing corpses and body parts because the German doctor putting on the show has doubled his fee. "In January he said he would charge us about US$3 million for staging the show for half a year, now he is charging about US$6 million," said Hsu Poh-yun, director of the New Aspects Arts Promo-tion. "That is only for the right to hold the show in Taiwan, not including trans-portation and insurance fees. The burden is too heavy for us," Hsu said. "But I am still interested in bringing the German corpse show to Taiwan because I saw it in January in South Korea and I liked it very much," Hsu said.
■ Penghu
First water shipment arrives
A ship carrying 3,300 tonnes of water arrived in Penghu yesterday to help relieve the serious water shortage on the island. Penghu has not had any rainfall for nearly five months and its reser-voirs are at dangerously low levels. The government is using money from its off-shore construction fund to ship water to the island. Water will be delivered every two days until June 15 next year. Officials estimated that with maintenance of the wharfs and other facilities and personnel expenses, the total expenditure may come to NT$110.8 million, or about NT$160 per tonne of water.
■ Utilities
Old pipes to be replaced
Taiwan Water Works will budget NT$5 billion (US$147 million) each year for installing new water pipes in urban areas around the country to replace the old ones and prevent water leakage, a company official said yesterday. Yang Ching-ho (楊清和), manager of the water supply department, said the project will begin next year. He said that approximately 25 percent of the water supplied by the company in urban areas is lost to leakage from old pipes.
■ Health
SARS hotline to reopen
A hotline set up to provide counseling to the public on fighting SARS during the peak of the outbreaks earlier this year will be reopened Saturday as part of efforts to brace for a possible resur-facing of the disease, a health official said yesterday. Chou Chih-hao (周志浩), deputy director of the Center for Disease Control, traveled to Ilan County yesterday to drum up public vigilance against SARS. Chou said health authorities are better-prepared to combat the disease, should it break out again.
■ Health
Push to join aid agency
The Foundation of Medical Professionals Alliance in Taiwan yesterday announced plans to lobby for a local branch of the international aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres. Foundation president Wu Shu-min (吳樹民) said that as part of efforts to join the World Health Organization, it was important that medical aid organizations cooperate to increase the nation's impact and visibility.
■ Education
Scholarships offered
Thai youths of Chinese or Taiwanese descent are welcomed to take advantage of the many scholarships offered by the Ministry of Education, said Kao Tsung-yun (高崇雲), chairman of the ministry's Committee on Overseas Chinese Education yesterday in Bangkok. The ministry has allocated NT$145 million (US$4.28 million) in scholarships this year for overseas Chinese students, Kao said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai