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Taiwan News Quick Take

■ EVENTS

Da-an flower show opens

The annual Taipei Flower Show at Da-an Forest Park kicked off yesterday, featuring various performances and activities. Called "Discover Paradise," the exhibition runs through Jan. 20. It showcases more than 270,000 flowers, with 13 different exhibition zones featuring creative flower displays from coffee cups to alligators. DIY and other family activities, magic shows, flower tea drinking games, and music and dance performances are also featured, the Taipei City Government said. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said the city government would continue to promote floriculture by hosting more flower shows and an international flower exposition in 2010. Visitors can also win prizes while spending quality time with the family. The show is open from 9am to 5pm.



■ TRANSPORT

Kids receive free trips

A group of children benefitted yesterday from free trips provided by three major transportation companies. China Airlines, Mandarin Airlines and Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp jointly sponsored 110 socially disadvantaged children to travel between Taipei City and Kaohsiung City by airplane and high speed rail. The children visited several tourist attractions including Taipei 101, Taipei Zoo and the Maokong Gondola, as well as Kaohsiung Harbor and the Dream-Mall shopping mall.



■ TRANSPORT

Violation tallies released

Riders of motorcycles over 550cc have committed 76 traffic violations while traveling legally on expressways in Taipei City over the past 50 days, according to tallies released on Thursday by the city's traffic police. The tallies, which looked at the expressways since they were opened to heavy motorcycles on Nov. 1, show that speeding accounted for 65 of the violations. In one of the most extreme cases, a rider was caught riding at 121kph while traveling near Huachung Bridge on the Huanhe Expressway, where the speed limit is 60kph, traffic police said. During the same period, the number of traffic violations by heavy motorcycles on ordinary roads amounted to 357, including 288 speeding violations, the data showed.



■ ENVIRONMENT

Wetland turned into habitat

A wetland that has been developed into a natural wastewater treatment area through ecological engineering in Taipei County has also been turned into a natural habitat for wildlife. The 13-hectare wetland, known as the Da Niao Pi Wetland (打鳥埤溼地), was the recipient of the 2007 Ford Motor Co Conservation and Environmental Grant for Excellence. Built between November 2005 and December last year, the wetland can treat some 11,000 tonnes of wastewater discharged into the Tamshui River by communities in Taipei County per day, with a cleansing rate of 60 percent. Kuo Hua-jen (郭華仁), a professor at National Taiwan University, provided the Taipei County Environmental Protection Bureau with the technological know-how to grow endemic wild rice on the wetland, efforts that have already borne fruit over the past year, said Hsiao Tien-kun (蕭天焜), a bureau inspector. Hsiao said the wetland has become a wildlife conservation habitat for wetland and migrant birds such as the common moorhen, a water bird that inhabits paddy fields, mangroves and wetland areas, the little grebe, the common teal and the rarely seen jacana, among others.
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