■ Drugs
Coast guard nets heroin
A man and his girlfriend were arrested outside a fast-food restaurant in Kaohsiung County on Wednesday night after attempting to sell heroin and amphetamines, coast-guard officials in Kaohsiung said yesterday. The 35-year-old man, surnamed Wu, and the woman, 23, also surnamed Wu, carried 26.5g of high-grade heroin and 6.1kg of amphetamines. After monitoring the couple for days, coast-guard officers made the bust in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant near scenic Chengchin Lake. The man and woman have been turned over to the Kaohsiung Prosecutor's Office. Both have been convicted in the past for drug offenses, the officials said. The officials said that they are now trying to trace the source of the drugs and determine whether there were accomplices.
■ Culture
`Hakka Melody' contest is on
The second annual "Grandma and Mama Hakka Melody" contest will be held on Sunday, May 23, to celebrate mothers in Hakka communities across Taiwan. The contest is being arranged by the Formosa Hakka Radio Station and the Taiwan Provincial Government and will be held at the Hua Shan Cultural and Creative Industry Center on Bade Road in Taipei from 10am until 4pm. Contestants will perform songs in Hakka that are dedicated to either their mothers or grandmothers. The first-prize winner will get NT$3,000, the second-prize winner gets NT$2,000 and the third prize is NT$1,000. Station representatives said that there will be a total of 60 contestants, the same number as last year. The station and the provincial government hope to promote Hakka culture and language through the competition.
■ Health
CPR demonstration
The Red Cross will hold a public cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) demonstration at the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi at 11 Sungshou Rd. in Taipei on Sunday from 10pm until 4pm. The Red Cross will have 120 trainers on site to teach those interested the correct CPR technique. There will also be a dance performance and a CPR competition. The organization hopes the event will help it recruit volunteers as part of its centennial anniversary volunteer drive. CPR combines mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions and is used during cardiac arrests to provide oxygenated blood to the heart and brain. Brain cells begin to die around four minutes after a cardiac arrest if no action is taken. However, if CPR is started within four minutes of collapse, a person has a 40 percent chance of survival.
■ Society
Andy and wife to dry out
Special Report actor Andy (安迪) and his wife are facing a drug rehabilitation program ranging from 10 days to two months. Shihlin prosecutors yesterday asked the Shihlin District Court that Andy and his wife be placed in a rehabilitation program for a set period because tests had shown that the couple had taken Ecstasy at some time after last December. The prosecutors said that hair analysis helped investigators conclude that Andy and his wife had taken drugs within the last six months. The saga began when six people attempted to blackmail the couple by videotaping their drug-taking and lovemaking during a private get-together at a KTV in Taipei last December. Andy told prosecutors that he did not take any drugs and that he and his wife had been set up. The six alleged blackmailers have also been arrested and indicted.
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