■WEATHER
Lupit to bring heavy rains
The periphery of Typhoon Lupit is likely to bring heavy rains to Taiwan next week, although it remains uncertain whether the storm will make landfall, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday. As of yesterday morning, Lupit was centered 1,600km east-southeast of the Hengchun (恆春) peninsula on Taiwan’s southernmost tip, CWB forecasters said. It has maximum sustained winds of 126kph, but forecasters expected the storm to intensify as it moves closer to land. The forecasters said it was still too early to predict if Lupit would hit Taiwan, but the storm’s periphery will affect Hengchun as well as northern and eastern parts of Taiwan starting on Tuesday, they said. They urged the public to be prepared for torrential rains as Lupit’s periphery collides with an intensifying northeast monsoon.
■POLITICS
Lien selected as APEC envoy
Former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) will be named President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) special envoy to the leaders summit of this year’s APEC forum slated to take place from Nov. 12 to Nov. 14 in Singapore, sources close to the Presidential Office said yesterday. The Presidential Office is expected to announce the appointment after completing consultations on details with the host country, the sources said. This will be the second consecutive year that Lien, who is an honorary chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), represents Taiwan at the APEC leaders summit. President Ma Ying-jeou yesterday said Lien’s attendance at last year’s APEC summit helped enhance Taiwan’s status and image and that he expects Lien to continue to provide his assistance and guidance in this area.
■CULTURE
GIO holds photo competition
The government has recently begun a photography competition in which images that most represent the country will be picked via online voting. People from Taiwan and abroad interested in taking part in the competition have until Nov. 25 to submit their entries, the Government Information Office (GIO) said. The GIO said the government would donate NT$1 to the charity United Way for every picture a competitor uploads. As of yesterday, NT$185 was collected, the GIO said. According to the rules, participants in each category — culture, nature, Made in Taiwan, humor and others — will be voted and the top three in each catagory will be awarded NT$8,000, NT$5,000 and NT$3,000 respectively, or different awards of equivalent value for winners living abroad.
■ENVIRONMENT
Denmark praises Taiwan
Denmark’s top envoy to Taiwan praised the country yesterday for demonstrating its commitment to combating climate change by attending a crucial meeting on the issue in Copenhagen in December and implementing policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Flemming Aggergaard, director of the Trade Commission of Denmark in Taipei, said the efforts were important because “it shows that Taiwan understands the situation.” “They also show how they [Taiwan and the other countries] are willing to follow up after the results in Copenhagen and make sure that changes will happen so that the environment will benefit,” Aggergaard said. The international community will gather in Copenhagen in December to decide future reductions on greenhouse gas emissions by working out an international climate change agreement before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai