■ CRIME
NSC acts after threat
The National Security Council (NSC) ordered extra protection for President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) daughter, Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤), after the Chinese-language Apple Daily newspaper received a postcard yesterday containing a threat to attack the dental clinic where she works unless she apologizes on behalf of her father for comments he made last month. This referred to the president saying that pro-blue supporters should swim to China if they like China so much. The neatly handwritten postcard was mailed on Wednesday from a made-up address in Taipei City, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said. The bureau said the postcard had multiple sets of fingerprints on it but an investigation was underway to catch the perpetrator. The NSC has also alerted secret service agents to provide extra protection to guard Chen Hsing yu's residence and work place.
■ SPORTS
Stamps feature Wang
Taiwan Post next Monday will issue special stamp-collectors' folders featuring New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民) for the 2009 World Games in Kaohsiung. Wang has been chosen by the Kaohsiung City Government as the official spokesperson for the international sports event. The stamps will be available in three different packages with varying prices. All three options include an A4-sized stamp bearing a picture of Wang. The priciest package, which will cost NT$300, will include three additional stamps of Wang in colors such as gold and silver. The middle option, costing NT$250, will include two additional Wang stamps in gold and silver, and the third package will include four additional stickers not featuring Wang. The folders will be available at post offices or on Taiwan Post's Web site.
■ CRIME
Teens arrested in Cambodia
Three Taiwanese nationals, including two teenage girls, have been arrested in Cambodia for trying to smuggle heroin out of the country, police said yesterday. The girls were identified as Lin Hui-min, 17, and Wu Chia-hsun, 16, who were each carrying 600g of the drug strapped to their thighs under their clothes at Phnom Penh International Airport, police said. Officers also arrested a man in the capital on Thursday in connection with the case, but did not provide details about him. The girls were detained on Wednesday after police searched them as they tried to board a flight to Hong Kong. "We always pay high attention to Taiwanese people now because so far most of the people arrested over drug crimes are Taiwanese nationals," airport police chief Chhuor Kimny said. Around half a dozen Taiwanese citizens have been detained trying to smuggle drugs through Phnom Penh airport in the past year.
■ TRADE
Agency welcomes Taiwan
The Agency for International Trade Information and Cooperation has granted Taiwan observer status for two years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The international agency functions as an intergovernmental initiative to help less-advantaged countries benefit from globalization by helping them take a more active part in the work of the WTO and other trade-related organizations, as well as trade negotiations. Taiwan's permanent representative to the WTO, Lin Yi-fu (林義夫), has obtained an invitation from the international trade agency's executive director to attend all decision-making meetings of the organization, the ministry said.
■ RESEARCH
Pearl yields increased
Mariculture researchers at National Penghu University (NPU) have improved techniques to cultivate black pearls, providing a higher yield rate and shorter breeding period, university sources said. Ueng Jinn-pyng (翁進坪), director of NPU's Netcage Aquaculture Product Technique Research Center, said that with the aid of improved techniques 100 black-lipped oysters in the test group produced a total of 20 black pearls -- each worth more than NT$10,000 (US$309). Ueng added that the breeding period from seed oyster to pearl harvest had been shorten to three years, a year less than the conventional method typically used in Japan.
■ LOTTERY
Winners donate to charity
Three out of five people who shared the nearly NT$1.3 billion (US$40.24 million) prize in Tuesday's Big Lotto donated part of their winnings to charity, a Taiwan Lottery official said yesterday. Shan Jui-chiang (尚瑞強), chairman of the Taiwan Lottery, said that each of the five winners will receive NT$250 million, but NT$200 million after tax. Shan said that one of the winners, a 30-year-old woman, won after spending NT$100 on lottery tickets. She donated NT$3 million to charity. Another winner, a woman in her 60s, bought a single NT$50 lottery ticket and donated NT$100,000. Another winner is a middle-aged man who spent NT$2,000 on lottery tickets. He donated NT$500,000 of his winnings, Shan said.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
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