■ WILDLIFE
Koala found dead at zoo
Ligi (麗琪), an 11-year-old koala bear at Taipei Zoo, died yesterday afternoon. Taipei Zoo director Jason Yeh (葉傑生) said tumors were found in her liver and spleen during a regular checkup in April. Yeh said Ligi was found dead at 4pm yesterday. The zoo will organize an online memorial ceremony for the koala on the zoo’s Web site soon. The female koala bear was sent to Taipei by an Australian sanctuary in 2001 and gave birth in 2003 and 2005. There are six koala bears at the zoo now, Yeh said. The zoo had to euthanize another koala, named Harley, in 2004 after a tumor was found in his nose.
■ CRIME
Fake yuan men arrested
Investigators arrested two men in Kaohsiung City for possessing counterfeit Chinese currency which they used while posing as Chinese tourists, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The investigators said the two con artists, surnamed Chen and Yang, made small purchases with the counterfeit bills at tourist attractions around Taiwan — including Kaohsiung’s Love River, Kenting National Park, Sun Moon Lake and Alishan. Chen and Yang admitted to posing as Chinese tourists by faking Chinese accents. Acting on a tip-off, investigators raided an apartment building in the city’s Zuoying District on Thursday afternoon, arresting the two men. Kaohsiung police joined the raid. According to the CIB, the investigators found 6,500 yuan (US$950) of fake Chinese money at the apartment, small bags of amphetamines and some electronic scales. Investigators handed over the suspects to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning. The CIB is now tracing the source of the bogus Chinese currency.
■ SOCIETY
Students get free rides
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp offered free rides yesterday to a team from a National Taiwan University (NTU) social service club dedicated to autistic children. The sponsorship is part of the company’s efforts to encourage local university students and private groups to travel to remote areas of the country to provide charity services or to help disadvantaged children, said a company public affairs officer. Under the program, the company offered club members 86 free round-trip train tickets worth in excess of NT$60,000. The NTU club’s 40-plus-member team, including 15 autistic children, left Taipei City for Taichung City for a three-day visit, said Yang Chao-chun (楊朝鈞), head of the university group. The club holds outdoor activities every year to help autistic children explore the world and meet people, Yang said.
■ SOCIETY
Puppies arrive from Japan
A first batch of puppies from Japan arrived in Taiwan on Thursday to be trained as guide dogs, a domestic guide dog association said. The four puppies, which were originally owned by a guide dog school in Hokkaido were brought to Taiwan by the Taiwan Guide Dog Association. As part of the group’s activities, local families are encouraged to take part in a puppy walker program to provide loving homes for the puppies until they are between 10 months old and 12 months old and eligible to enter the association’s training program, the association said. Taiwan has welcomed guide dogs and puppies to be trained as guide dogs from Japan and the US, which have signed cooperative agreements in canine disease prevention and control with Taiwan, according to the association. At present, Taiwan has only 24 qualified guide dogs for some 60,000 visually impaired individuals.
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
CHANGES: After-school tutoring periods, extracurricular activities during vacations or after-school study periods must not be used to teach new material, the ministry said The Ministry of Education yesterday announced new rules that would ban giving tests to most elementary and junior-high school students during morning study and afternoon rest periods. The amendments to regulations governing public education at elementary schools and junior high schools are to be implemented on Aug. 1. The revised rules stipulate that schools are forbidden to use after-school tutoring periods, extracurricular activities during summer or winter vacation or after-school study periods to teach new course material. In addition, schools would be prohibited from giving tests or exams to students in grades one to eight during morning study and afternoon break periods, the
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition