■ CRIME
Man sentenced over heroin
A Cambodian court sentenced a Taiwanese man to 22 years in prison for trying to smuggle 0.8kg of heroin out of Cambodia, a court official said yesterday. Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge Chhay Kong said he sentenced Lin Ko-chih, 41, on Tuesday. Lin was also handed a fine of 60 million riel (US$15,000). Police arrested Lin in October last year after finding heroin in his clothes when he checked in for a flight to Taiwan at Phnom Penh’s international airport. Nou Chantha, Lin’s lawyer, said the heroin belonged to Lin’s best friend, who had asked him to bring a substance to Taiwan to be used in the production of make-up. The lawyer said he would appeal.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Taichung hikes trash fees
The Taichung City Government’s Environmental Protection Bureau said yesterday that garbage treatment fees in the city would be raised from the start of next year to reflect increased transportation and waste disposal costs. The bureau said garbage fees in the city have been unchanged for seven years, while waste treatment costs have increased by NT$400 per tonne. If treatment fees are not raised, the city could face a garbage crisis, the bureau said. In Taichung City, a household’s garbage treatment fees are calculated based on its monthly water bill. The bureau said the garbage treatment fee for households with running water would be raised by NT$0.9 per cubic meter of water used, while the fee for households without running water would increase by NT$13.5 per month.
■ EDUCATION
US seeks Chinese teachers
The US College Board will send a representative to recruit Chinese-language teaching personnel in Taiwan next month as part of an educational agreement between the two countries, the Ministry of Education said on Tuesday. Recruited teachers will teach Chinese language and culture under the Advanced Placement Program during the 2009-2010 academic year. The program, run by the College Board, offers college-level courses at high schools across the US and Canada. The representative will recruit three to seven Taiwanese teachers with college degrees and teaching licenses who can speak fluent English and who have experience teaching Chinese as a second language, the statement said. They will receive annual salaries ranging from US$30,000 to US$60,000, with Taiwan’s Ministry of Education subsidizing their travel fees, it said. More information and application forms are available on the ministry’s Web site. Enrollment ends on June 27.
■ CULTURE
Puppet troupe to play in US
A troupe from the renowned Liao Wen-ho Puppet Theater (廖文和布袋戲團) is scheduled to perform in two US cities later this month. Tsai Chung-li (蔡仲禮), director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office’s press division, said the troupe would perform three shows at the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington on Saturday and Sunday next week and two shows at the Open Stage in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on June 24. The troupe will perform the Chinese classic Journey to the West as well as its adaptation of The Master Swordsman. The Liao Wen-ho Puppet Theater, established in 1976, combines traditional and modern artistic styles in its performances, which feature multimedia and sound and light effects.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai