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Taiwan News Quick Take

■POLITICS

Movement changes name

The pro-independence Hand-in-Hand Taiwan Alliance (手護台灣大聯盟) yesterday changed its name to Taiwan National Alliance (台灣國家聯盟), with former Examination Yuan president Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文) replacing former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) as convener. Yao told a press conference in Taipei yesterday that the 84-year-old Lee had decided to hand over the position because of his age, adding that Lee would continue to support the alliance. Yao said the group would continue to scrutinize the government and work to safeguard the nation’s sovereignty. The alliance said it hoped to cooperate with other pro-Taiwan groups to “build Taiwan as a new country.”



■SOCIETY

City eyes Sizihwan beach

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said yesterday the city government could assume control of Sizihwan beach (西子灣), which is currently administrated by National Sun Yat-sen University, after residents complained of being charged a fee by the university to access the beach. Chen told reporters the city government had agreed to allow the university to manage the beach for educational purposes after the school was founded. However, Sizihwan beach belongs to all residents of Kaohsiung and it was very “unreasonable” for the university to charge visitors an NT$100 admission fee, she said. Chen said the city government would hold talks with the university and consult the city’s Legal Affairs Bureau about the possibility of taking over the beach.



■ART

Literature catalogue unveiled

The National Museum of Taiwan Literature in Tainan said yesterday it would unveil on Friday a new databank that contains more than 100,000 titles of works by some 2,500 Taiwanese writers. The museum said the Chinese-language catalogue consists of three volumes covering all types of writing — narrative, novels, essays, poetry, drama, reportage, autobiographies, diaries, letters and children’s literature. The museum said it had commissioned Wen Hsun magazine, which is owned by the Taiwan Literature Development Foundation, to collect information and compile the catalogue, an exercise that required two years. After the catalogue is released on Friday, it will be accessible on the Internet and searchable by keyword.



■MEDICINE

‘Danshen’ mass produced

The Council of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Institute said on Monday it had developed a new technique to grow danshen, a herb widely used in Chinese medicine to treat cardiovascular disorders. Chen Wei-chen, an associate research fellow at the institute’s bio-technology division, said that after six years of experimentation, experts at the institute were now able to grow danshen on a large scale, with more than 90 percent of the seedlings transplanted from a nursery growing successfully on farmland. The danshen grown in this manner contains 50 percent more tanshinones, the anticoagulant agent found in the plant’s roots, than the herb sold on the market, Chen said. He said the technology would be shared with the private sector for mass production. Danshen, also known as Salvia miltiorrhiza, is widely used in herbal medicine to treat atherosclerosis — the hardening of the arteries with cholesterol plaque — and blood clotting abnormalities.


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