■ SPORTS
Prosecutors monitor games
Tainan City prosecutors will begin to monitor professional baseball games today in a bid to prevent match fixing. Seventeen prosecutors will take turns in leading local police in monitoring the games and collecting evidence if they think there are signs of rigging, said Lin Chih-feng (林志峰), a chief prosecutor. However, only games at the baseball stadiums in Tainan will be monitored, Lin said. Professional baseball game rigging and underground gambling have been rampant in the past two decades since the Chinese Professional Baseball League was launched in 1990. Over the years, several coaches and players have been detained and indicted for match fixing.
■ NATURE
Cyclists bike for Yushan
In the latest twist to an ongoing campaign to get Yushan listed as one of the world's seven natural wonders, 24 cyclists from around the country are biking on the country's tallest mountain. Yushan National Park Headquarters said the cyclists began the tour on Wednesday and were expected to complete the 185km route today. Park officials said they hoped the cyclists' enthusiasm, energy and spirit of embracing challenges would rub off on the public. Each of the cyclists are wearing a vest printed with the slogan “Vote for Yushan.” Yushan is currently in first place in the “mountains and volcanoes” category in the contest to select the world's new seven natural wonders organized by the Swiss-based New7Wonders Foundation. To boost Yushan's chances of being selected, the national park headquarters urged the public to cast their vote for the mountain by visiting the Web site http://www.new7wonders.com.
■ SOCIETY
Jilted woman finds no light
A jilted woman who attempted to set herself on fire in front of the Taipei World Trade Center early yesterday was frustrated to find that she had forgotten to bring a lighter or a match, a local TV station reported. After dousing herself with gasoline, the unidentified woman searched her handbag only to find that she had forgotten to bring a lighter, cable news network TVBS said. The gasoline-soaked woman then went to the parking lot of the trade center to try to borrow a lighter from a guard, who became suspicious of her intentions and instead called police. The woman later told police she was dumped by her boyfriend and she wanted to end her life. The woman was later taken home by her family, TVBS said.
■ CRIME
Dogs help drug crackdown
Sniffer dogs have become more important in detecting illegal narcotics at customs checkpoints, detecting some 20 percent of the illegal drugs confiscated from travelers at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in the first quarter, the Customs Office said. More than 90kg of unlawful drugs smuggled in by passengers was confiscated at the airport in the first three months of this year, with about 20 percent of the drugs discovered by dogs serving at the airport, the officials said. Taiwan's drug sniffer dogs squad was established in 2002 to help customs agents crack down on smuggling of illegal substances. Six sniffer dogs are serving at the Taoyuan airport. Besides the work of the dogs, a majority — or 67 percent — of the banned drugs seized was discovered by customs agents with the help of X-ray machines, while the remaining 13 percent was tracked down through tip-offs, the Customs Office said.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
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