■ COAST GUARD
Maritime drill scheduled
A maritime drill will be held in Suao (蘇澳) tomorrow to hone the coast guard's capability to respond to hijack threats as the number of incidents rises, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. Late last month, an Ilan-registered fishing boat, the Yu Chang 66, was hijacked by a Chinese deckhand and forced to head to Fujian Province in China. Earlier this month, a Nanfangao-registered fishing boat, the Chin Fu Yu, was also hijacked and forced to sail to the Fujian coast, CGA officials said, adding that both vessels were able to return to Taiwan and none of the crew members were hurt in the incidents. Tomorrow's drill is also aimed at honing the coast guard's combat readiness and ability to respond to other undesirable incidents, the officials said.
■ POLITICS
Ma rejects academic's claim
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday rejected a US academic's remarks that he supports the "one country, two systems" framework originally proposed by late Chinese president Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) during the early 1980s, arguing that he had never agreed with it. "I strongly oppose such a proposal, and my stance has never changed. I feel sorry that an American who isn't familiar with the situation at all would make such an accusation," Ma said, in response to comments made by Bruce Herschensohn, a professor of public policy who served in the administrations of US presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) published yesterday. Herschensohn was quoted in the interview as saying that he would not be surprised if Ma adopted the "one country, two systems" policy if he were elected president.
■ WEATHER
Temperature hits record
The temperature in Dawu Township (大武) in Taitung County soared to 37.4?C yesterday, a new high for the nation so far this year, the Central Weather Bureau reported yesterday. The peak temperature, which was recorded at 12:16pm, was caused by foehn winds, bureau officials said, adding that a foehn wind occurs when a deep layer of prevailing wind is forced over a mountain range -- in this case, the Central Mountain Range. In Keelung, the temperature rose to 37.3?C at 1:14pm, making it the hottest day in May in the city's history, the officials added.
■ CRIME
Counterfeit suspects nabbed
Three people have been turned over to the prosecution after being caught selling fake or substandard products on a local auction Web site, the Criminal Investigation Bureau announced yesterday. The three suspects, identified only by their surnames Hu, Chen and Yeh, were handed over to the Banciao Prosecutor's Office a day earlier for investigation on charges of trademark infringement. The detentions came after police, acting on tip-offs provided by online buyers who claimed to have been cheated, raided their offices and warehouses in Taipei County, Changhua County and Yunlin County, where more than 1,000 counterfeit goods fabricated in China were stored. Police said the products the three men auctioned on local Web sites -- mainly memory chips, batteries and cellphone components -- were counterfeits neatly packaged and sold at unfairly low prices.
■ EDUCATION
Professor awarded title
A civil engineering professor of National Taiwan University was awarded the title of Academician by the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna on Thursday. Yang Yeong-bin (楊永斌), who is also secretary-general of the Institute of Engineering Education Taiwan, was granted the title by the academy's president, Peter Schuster, becoming the first Taiwanese scholar to have earned the honor. The academy's former president, Herbert Mang, recommended Yang for the honor on the strength of his research papers on the theory of spatial structure stability and vibration of high-speed railway bridges, which have earned him respect in the international academic community. The academy, established in 1847, is similar to Taiwan's Academia Sinica in status and function.
■ POLITICS
Official in blog trouble
Taipei City Government Law and Regulation Committee commissioner Yeh Chin-yuan (葉慶元) came under attack from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors yesterday after he was caught updating his personal blog during a question-and-answer session at Taipei City Council. DPP City Councilor Wu Su-yao (吳思瑤) slammed Yeh for ignoring the session to write blog articles and urged Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) to keep a closer eye on his team. "Not only did Yeh use work time to do personal things, but he spent a lot of time criticizing the DPP in his articles," Wu said. Yeh acknowledged the wrongdoing, and promised not to commit the same error. Yeh, however, was not the only city official to be caught slacking off at work. Department of Labor Director Su Ying-kuei (蘇盈貴) has been caught updating a personal blog during office hours, while the former commissioner of the Research and Development Evaluation Commission, Jessica Chou (周韻采), was fired after being found doing yoga during office hours.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
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