■ HEALTH
Octopus balls melamine-free
Taichung County’s Public Health Bureau said yesterday that samples from a recent shipment of octopus balls from Shandong Province in China were found to be free of melamine after samples of the shipment in question were sent to the Bureau of Food and Drug Analysis for testing. The Department of Health has ordered the importer to halt sales of the octopus balls — a popular round dumpling — as a precautionary measure after trace amounts of melamine were discovered in similar products tested in Japan. The department had asked Kaohsiung County to check the octopus balls, which were imported by a company registered in the county, but county officials found they had already been sold to a distributor in Taichung County. The imported shipment came from a different supplier than those found to have problems in Japan, which originated from Fujian Province.
■ CRIME
Amphetamine plant raided
Police raided an amphetamine production facility in Pingtung County’s Chaojhou Township (潮州) on Thursday night, arresting two suspects and seizing nearly 55kg of partly processed amphetamine and production equipment. Chaojhou Township police said yesterday that the partly processed amphetamine had an estimated street value of about NT$100 million (US$3.07 million). A 26-year-old man surnamed Chou and a 20-year-old surnamed Wang were arrested, police said. After receiving a tip, police said they staked out the suspected amphetamine production facility in Chaojhou for 20 days before carrying out the raid on Thursday night. Police said the two men rented the place last year and began producing amphetamines at the site about two months ago.
■ CULTURE
228 park to host concert
The Taipei City Government will hold a memorial concert for musician Lu Chuan-sheng, (呂泉生), a well-known composer of the 1940s and 1950s, at 6:30pm today in the Taipei 228 Memorial Park after Lu passed away earlier this year. Traditional Taiwanese folksongs, such as If I Open My Eyes and Mind (阮若打開心內的門窗) and Lullaby (搖嬰仔歌), were written by Lu, reflecting Taiwan’s situation during World War II. He also collected and preserved many Taiwanese folksongs including Diu-Diu Dang (丟丟銅). The concert will run until 9:30pm. Concertgoers are welcome to visit the 228 Memorial Museum, where original manuscripts of Lu’s compositions are on display.
■ EDUCATION
APEC camp awards prizes
Two young Taiwanese adults received top prizes for their research papers on the country’s water culture at an APEC camp, the National Youth Commission (NYC) said in a statement yesterday. The two winners, a man and a woman in their 20s, won the awards at the 2008 APEC Youth Camp, an event held under the framework of the APEC forum in Peru from Oct. 1 to Oct. 6. The theme of the camp was “Caring for Sustainable Development in the Asia-Pacific Region.” Among the four-member delegation, Cheng Yu-hsung’s (鄭佑軒) thesis on renovating Love River (愛河) in Kaohsiung City garnered the Best Essay Award, while Wang Chih-hua (王芷華) won the prize for the Most Interesting Essay with a paper on coastal water resources in Chiayi County.
■ SCIENCE
Birthday open day planned
Academia Sinica will celebrate its 80th birthday on Oct. 25 by inviting the public to have some fun with its academicians and staff at an open day. A press statement issued by Academia Sinica in Taipei yesterday said the open day would include 31 popular science lectures — including one given by academician Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), former minister of the National Science Council, titled “Environments, Genes and Human Diseases” — as well as a jazz-classic fusion concert and a children’s show. Visitors would also be able to tour the 46 core science facilities at the center, including the Genomics Research Center, or take a ride in the experimental car at the Institute of Earth Sciences, the statement said. Those interested in finding out more can read more information on the open day at www.sinica.edu.tw.
■ EDUCATION
Free school lunches mulled
Minister of Education Cheng Jei-cheng (鄭瑞城) said yesterday that his ministry hopes to be able to provide free lunches to all elementary and junior high school students by 2010. Cheng made the remarks at a question-and-answer session of the Education and Culture Committee at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, during which the issue of children from underprivileged families who are unable to afford the lunch fees at schools was raised. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Tsai Chin-lung (蔡錦隆) said the government had been generous in its funding of the nation’s top universities and that it should also find the money to fund a free lunch program in all elementary and junior high schools. Pressed by Tsai on when free lunches would be possible, Cheng said the education budget for next year had already been appropriated, but that he was looking at implementing some sort of program in 2010. The latest government statistics showed that around 140,000 students, 5.6 percent of the elementary and junior high school student population, were not able to afford to pay for school lunches.
The first global hotel Keys Selection by the Michelin Guide includes four hotels in Taiwan, Michelin announced yesterday. All four received the “Michelin One Key,” indicating guests are to experience a “very special stay” at any of the locations as the establishments are “a true gem with personality. Service always goes the extra mile, and the hotel provides much more than others in its price range.” Of the four hotels, three are located in Taipei and one in Taichung. In Taipei, the One Key accolades were awarded to the Capella Taipei, Kimpton Da An Taipei and Mandarin Oriental Taipei. Capella Taipei was described by
EVA Airways today confirmed the death of a flight attendant on Saturday upon their return to Taiwan and said an internal investigation has been launched, as criticism mounted over a social media post accusing the airline of failing to offer sufficient employee protections. According to the post, the flight attendant complained of feeling sick on board a flight, but was unable to take sick leave or access medical care. The crew member allegedly did not receive assistance from the chief purser, who failed to heed their requests for medical attention or call an ambulance once the flight landed, the post said. As sick
The Taichung District Court yesterday confirmed its final ruling that the marriage between teenage heir Lai (賴) and a man surnamed Hsia (夏) was legally invalid, preventing Hsia from inheriting Lai’s NT$500 million (US$16.37 million) estate. The court confirmed that Hsia chose not to appeal the civil judgement after the court handed down its ruling in June, making the decision final. In the June ruling, the court said that Lai, 18, and Hsia, 26, showed “no mutual admiration before the marriage” and that their interactions were “distant and unfamiliar.” The judge concluded that the couple lacked the “true intention of
INDUSTRY: Beijing’s latest export measures go beyond targeting the US and would likely affect any country that uses Chinese rare earths or related tech, an academic said Taiwanese industries could face significant disruption from China’s newly tightened export controls on rare earth elements, as much of Taiwan’s supply indirectly depends on Chinese materials processed in Japan, a local expert said yesterday. Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈), director of the Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research, said that China’s latest export measures go far beyond targeting the US and would likely affect any country that uses Chinese rare earths or related technologies. With Japan and Southeast Asian countries among those expected to be hit, Taiwan could feel the impact through its reliance on Japanese-made semi-finished products and
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