■ 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.
POLAM KOPITIAM CASE: Of the two people still in hospital, one has undergone a liver transplant and is improving, while the other is being evaluated for a liver transplant A fourth person has died from bongkrek acid poisoning linked to the Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday, as two other people remain seriously ill in hospital. The first death was reported on March 24. The man had been 39 years old and had eaten at the restaurant on March 22. As more cases of suspected food poisoning involving people who had eaten at the restaurant were reported by hospitals on March 26, the ministry and the Taipei Department of Health launched an investigation. The Food and
The long-awaited Taichung aquarium is expected to open next year after more than a decade of development. The building in Cingshui District (清水) is to feature a large ocean aquarium on the first floor, coral display area on the second floor, a jellyfish tank and Dajia River (大甲溪) basin display on the third, a river estuary display and restaurant on the fourth, and a cafe and garden on the fifth. As it is near Wuci Fishing Port (梧棲漁港), many are expecting the opening of the aquarium to bring more tourism to the harbor. Speaking at the city council on Monday, Taichung City Councilor
A fourth person has died in a food poisoning outbreak linked to the Xinyi (信義) branch of Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in Taipei, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said on Monday. It was the second fatality in three days, after another was announced on Saturday. The 40-year-old woman experienced multiple organ failure in the early hours on Monday, and the family decided not to undergo emergency resuscitation, Wang said. She initially showed signs of improvement after seeking medical treatment for nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, but her condition worsened due to an infection, he said. Two others who
Taiwanese should be mindful when visiting China, as Beijing in July is likely to tighten the implementation of policies on national security following the introduction of two regulations, a researcher said on Saturday. China on Friday unveiled the regulations governing the law enforcement and judicial activities of national security agencies. They would help crack down on “illegal” and “criminal” activities that Beijing considers to be endangering national security, according to reports by China’s state media. The definition of what constitutes a national security threat in China is vague, Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said. The two procedural regulations are to provide Chinese