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Taiwan Quick Take

■ CRIME
Contraband cigarettes seized
Coast guard officials said yesterday they had seized a large haul of contraband cigarettes from the Keelung River in Taipei, the first such seizure in a river in Taiwan proper. Following a tip-off, coast guard authorities had stepped up patrols in recent days and detected two suspicious sampans anchoring beside a dredging vessel in the Keelung River under the Zhoumei Expressway early yesterday. A search of the vessels found 282 cartons of untaxed cigarettes with a market value of approximately NT$846,000 (US$25,600). Although the crews of the sampans fled, the four crewmen aboard the dredger were arrested. The Coast Guard Administration said that starting last November it had stepped up a crackdown on contraband agricultural, fishery and livestock products, as well as live animals, cigarettes and alcohol. In the past, seizures have been made at sea or in harbors rather than in rivers, showing that smugglers are trying novel ways to sneak in contraband.

■ CRIME
Fake summons misfires
A Taipei City man had to report to court on Sunday after his plan to use a forged military summons to keep his wife from finding out about a secret trip with his friends to Macau went awry. Tsai, 29, was hoping to fool his wife into thinking he was performing military service while he secretly slipped off for a vacation with two of his single friends. Tsai forged one of his friend's old military summons to pretend he had been called up, but wrote his address incorrectly on the envelope. Instead of being delivered to Tsai's wife, the letter was returned to the Taipei City reserve headquarters, which discovered it was a fake and reported the case to Taipei City police. Tsai was called in for questioning on Sunday and has been charged with forgery, as has his friend who lent him the expired summons.

■ CRIME
Drug mule arrested
A Yunlin man named Lin Ming-yuan (林銘源) was arrested on Sunday night for transporting 2,873g of heroin, worth more than NT$20 million (US$600,000), into the country. Lin, who was carrying the drugs from Thailand, was caught at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Taichung investigators had received tips saying that Lin would enter the country with the heroin on Sunday night. More than three dozen investigators awaited his arrival at the international airport. The drugs, packed in plastic bags, were found in his luggage. Lin said he had been offered a free trip to Thailand by a drug smuggling ring, which gave him a NT$300,000 payment for transporting the drug.

■ EDUCATION
Spelling Bee contest opens
The third National Spelling Bee, an annual English spelling competition, has started taking applications for semi-final participants from the winners of preliminary rounds held in elementary, junior high, senior high and vocational schools, a competition organizer said yesterday. Ho Neng-yu (何能裕), chief executive of the Sayling Wen Cultural and Educational Foundation, said the spelling competition is modeled on spelling bees in the US and aims to improve Taiwanese students' English competence. Applications for the semi-finals will be accepted until Sunday, Ho said. The semi-finals will be held in Taoyuan on June 2, in Taichung on June 3, in Kaohsiung and Taipei on June 9 and in the newly added location of Hualien on June 10, Ho said.

■ POLITICS
CKS Hall row continues
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) vowed yesterday to arrest anyone who tries to damage the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. Fielding questions from city councilors, the mayor said the hall has been provisionally designated as a heritage site by the city government and that anyone who tried to damage it would face immediate arrest and be dealt with according to the law. The Ministry of Education, which administers the hall, said last Wednesday that it would replace the name plate of the hall "on a convenient day." Lee Yung-ping (李永萍), director of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, told the council that her office was keeping a close eye on the maintenance work being undertaken by the management of the hall to ensure that no "damage" was done to the "historical building."

■ SEMINARS
Water seminar planned
The Taiwan Water Corp will host an international seminar on drinking water systems at National Taiwan University (NTU) on May 24 and 25 in an effort to improve the nation's technology and skills in the area, a company spokesman said yesterday. More than 20 academics and experts from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Pakistan, Singapore, Japan, Israel, South Korea, the US and Germany will present research papers at the seminar organized by NTU's Yen Tjing Ling Industrial Research Institute, the spokesman said. The seminar will touch upon many topics regarding drinking water supply systems, including purification plants, benchmarking systems, water leak control, water supply security and water source conservation.


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