■ CRIME
Teen arrested in drugs probe
Police arrested a 19-year-old senior high school student implicated in the smuggling of more than 6kg of marijuana into the country, Taipei County authorities said on Friday. The aviation police discovered the marijuana in items registered as snow boots shipped from Canada at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Following the delivery of the drugs to Taipei County, the police arrested the student, identified only by his last name, Wang, when he went to pick up the package. Wang told police that he was paid NT$50,000 (US$1,550) to handle the pick-up for a man nicknamed "Ah Kuang," and that he did not know the shipment contained marijuana.
■ ENERGY
Wind-power subsidiary opens
Leading wind-power firm Vestas Wind Systems A/S of Denmark opened a subsidiary company in Taiwan on Thursday, saying the nation was an "ideal place" to develop the alternative energy source. "Taiwan relies on imports for its energy needs, has environmental concerns and has a shallow seashore on its west coast, so it is an ideal place to develop wind power," said Thorbjorn Rasmussen, president of Vestas Asia Pacific. Taiwan has great potential for this "modern energy" as it is hoping to install 2,000 megawatts in wind-power projects by 2010, he said. "The purpose of launching Vestas Taiwan Ltd as a subsidiary is to further develop a local organization, including a larger after-sales and service department, for maintaining turbines in Taiwan," Rasmussen said.
■ AGRICULTURE
Premier urges tea protection
Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) yesterday urged tea farmers not to let the nation's top-quality tea sprouts and tea producing technology flow overseas in order to protect Taiwan's competitive advantage in the industry. Chang made the comments while presenting awards at a ceremony in Taichung County on the opening day of a tea culture festival. The festival is being sponsored by the Taichung Tea Commercial Association with the aim of promoting the county's tea produce. Chang said the nation produced a total of 19,000 tonnes of tea last year, with a production value of NT$4.35 billion (US$135 million). He expressed hope that the nation's tea industry would develop based on the principles of "quality, sanitation and safety" in line with government policies to promote food safety in the agricultural sector. He urged domestic tea farmers to work to produce a wider variety of top quality teas in order to help "Taiwan tea become the best in the world."
■ AGRICULTURE
Fair promotes local produce
A traveling fair featuring fruits and other agricultural products is being held at a number of supermarkets in Indonesia, introducing Taiwanese produce to the southeast Asian nation's upper middle class and Chinese-speaking groups, a spokesman for the event's organizers said yesterday. The fair runs through Feb. 19, the spokesman said. The exhibition displays a wide range of foods, including fresh fruits, organic produce and processed food. Fruits such as Ponkan mandarin oranges, bell fruits, grapes, pineapples and persimmons have been included in the fair, the spokesman said. The event marks the beginning of the government's plan to promote agricultural produce in ten potentially lucrative markets, the spokesman said. The other nine countries targeted by the government are Japan, South Korea, India, Russia, Brazil, Malaysia, Turkey, Vietnam and Spain.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
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