SOCIETY
Centennial mascot chosen
Wearing a pair of large, red glasses and a scarf patterned after the Republic of China’s (ROC) national flag, a white “Shining Baby.ROC” was selected yesterday as the mascot that will be featured in a series of activities celebrating the ROC’s 100th anniversary next year. Lee Kai-an (李鎧安), who designed Shining Baby.ROC, said the sun in the national flag inspired him to design the mascot in a way that tells the story of the ROC fighting for freedom and democracy and achieving a great deal over the past 100 years. He hoped that the ROC would continue to develop in an open and multicultural spirit in the next century, symbolized by the shafts of light above the head of the mascot. Shining Baby.com will be unveiled to the public during a national flag-raising ceremony on Saturday. Council for Cultural Affairs Minister Emile Sheng (盛治仁) said Lee’s work was chosen from among more than 2,500 submissions in a design contest held over the past two-and-a-half months. Many of the entries were quite original and meaningful, with features such as Formosan black bears, blue magpies or monkeys, the pattern of the plum flower or the national flag (blue sky, white sun and crimson background), Sheng said.
CRIME
Man allegedly kills wife
An elderly man allegedly ended his ailing wife’s life by pushing a screwdriver through her skull, weeks after he said on his blog he might kill her as an act of mercy, media report said yesterday. Wang Ching-hsi (王敬熙), an 83-year-old former engineer, is suspected of giving his wife sleeping pills early on Sunday and then killing her, the Chinese-language United Daily News and other papers said. “Why I did this? It’s all on my blog,” Wang told journalists while being taken away by Taipei police, TV footage showed. A blog entry dated Dec. 5 that appeared to be Wang’s remained available yesterday and detailed in candid terms how his 80-year-old wife had lost the will to live. The blog entry said that she was suffering from Parkinson’s disease and had recently broken her left leg. “She is miserable,” the blog said. It referred to an agreement the couple had arrived at a decade ago “to die in peace” and quoted Wang as telling his wife: “When the time comes, I will kill you.” After allegedly killing his wife, Wang called police to turn himself in and waited in his apartment for the officers to arrive, the United Daily News said. Euthanasia and the right to die has been a hotly debated topic in recent years. In June, the Cabinet passed draft regulations allowing terminally ill patients or their relatives to give up medical treatment that prolongs suffering without preventing eventual death.
POLITICS
KMT recruitment draws 300
The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) first employee recruitment drive in nearly 10 years attracted more than 300 people as part of the party’s attempts to reshape itself, an official said over the weekend. More than 300 college graduates and advanced degree holders have signed up for a recruitment exam scheduled for Sunday, said Lin Yung-juei (林永瑞), chief of the KMT administration committee. The party has stepped up its efforts to seek new blood after its narrow victory in last month’s five special municipality elections prompted a KMT reshuffle of branch and headquarters department chiefs. The 20 people hired through the recruitment drive will have to complete training and pass various tests before being deployed at different branches nationwide, Lin said.
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