DINNER PARTIES: Taipei City Councilor Tsai Kun-lung was found guilty of vote-buying after the Taiwan High Court ruled he gave away gift boxes and food to solicit votes
By Jimmy Chuang And Mo Yan-chih
The Taiwan High Court yesterday ruled Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Tsai Kun-lung (蔡坤龍) be stripped of his elected status in a bribery case.

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NICER DAYS: The number of days this summer with highly polluted air has dropped to a five-year low, with officials attributing it to skyrocketing fuel costs
By Meggie Lu
Rising fuel prices may have contributed positively to the environment, as air quality readings this summer show pollution to be at a five-year low, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday.

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A majority of office workers in the country are keeping a close eye on the Beijing Olympics, with some even changing their work schedules or skipping work altogether to watch the events on TV, a local online poll showed on Monday.

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CUTTING CLASS: Reporters who were camped outside the University of Virginia said that the former president’s son didn’t show up to attend his compulsory orientation
By Jimmy Chuang and Ko Shu-Ling
Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) long-time legal adviser Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said yesterday that his working relationship with Chen came to an end last Friday.

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By Jenny W. Hsu
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) refused to give an approximate date yesterday on when Taiwan’s Swiss representative office would give a full report on why it failed to immediately forward a request for assistance from Swiss authorities regarding an alleged money-laundering case involving the former first family.

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By Rich Chang
Amid dampened morale within the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the face of money-laundering allegations against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), some party members have suggested a name change for the party to cut its ties from the former first family.

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MERE SPECULATION?: The former president said he could not be found guilty because he did not name any names when he made comments about the frigate case in 2005
By Jimmy Chuang
The verdict in the slander suit against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) by retired Vice Admiral Lei Hsueh-ming (雷學明) will be handed down on Sept. 9, after the last hearing at the Taipei District Court yesterday.

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By Flora Wang
Although Taiwanese are generally happy, they are not very satisfied with the performance of the government, a survey showed yesterday.

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By Ko Shu-Ling
Taiwan and China are expected to ink agreements for direct sea links and chartered cargo flights in late October or early November, a senior official at the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said yesterday.

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GRAYING: A report by the Council of Economic Planning and Development predicted that people over 65 years old would make up 37.5 percent of the population by 2056
Taiwan is set to formally become an aging society in 2017, with the number of people aged 65 years and older accounting for 14 percent of the population, a Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) official said yesterday.

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SEEKING ANSWERS: The foundation discovered that most teenagers were turning to the pregnancy hotline because they did not know how to inform their parents
A significant number of teenagers under the age of 16 have sought assistance via the national teenage pregnancy counseling hotline or its Web site over the past year, indicating a trend in which teenage pregnancies are occurring at younger ages, the non-profit Garden of Hope Foundation said yesterday.

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CAUTION: Dengue fever is transmitted to humans by infected Aedes albo pictus mosquito larvae, which mainly breed in containers holding stagnant water
By Mo Yan-Chih
The Taipei City Government urged residents yesterday to cooperate with its disinfection measures against dengue fever after declaring an epidemic “red alert.”

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Results of an online survey suggested that craftworks made with lazurite, or colored glass, are top choices for Taiwanese when giving to foreign friends.

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The Kaohsiung City Government’s Mass Rapid Transit Bureau said yesterday that a revised plan for an extension of its two MRT lines is almost finished and would be submitted to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications next month.

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■CRIME
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