■ Accident
Search for crew expanded
The Coast Guard Administration dispatched three additional patrol vessels and expanded its search area yesterday for the four crew members of a freighter that capsized off southern Taiwan on Sunday. The admini-stration's southern Taiwan operations center had dispatched four patrol frigates to the scene immediately after the freighter Chi Hong capsized and sank in waters between Tungkang and the islet of Hsiaoliuchiu on Sunday morning. In the airborne and maritime search Sunday, only one of the five crew members of the 48-tonne cargo ship was rescued, administration officials said. Officials have expanded the search area from the Pingtung-Hsiaoliuchiu area to the Pingtung-Tainan area as it is believed strong winds and high waves may have swept the crew farther away from the scene.
■ Sports
Michael Jordan to visit
Michael Jordan, a former NBA player who is thought by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time, is scheduled to visit Taiwan this month as part of an Asian trip that includes Japan, Hong Kong and China, a spokesman for Nike Taiwan said yesterday. However, the exact date of his visit and a detailed itinerary have not been set, the spokesman said. It will be Jordan's first visit to this country, he added. In a bid to allow Jordan's fans to have the opportunity to interact with the superstar, the spokesman said that Nike Taiwan would sponsor an activity on its Web site -- www.nike.com.tw -- through which participants can pay homage to Jordan with verses and pictures.
■ Crime
Would-be killer questioned
Lai Chu-hsing (賴注醒), who was arrested Sunday for allegedly planning to assassinate President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), was taken to the Taoyuan County District Prosecutors' Office for a seven-hour interrogation. Officials say he might be charged with inciting others to commit offenses and with threatening and endangering the life of another. The Prosecutors' Office has filed a detention request for Lai with the Taoyuan County District Court and was waiting for a ruling as of press time. Lai, who sells water for a living, was originally arrested for distributing flyers advocating a revolutionary party to assassinate Chen during his upcoming inauguration ceremony. Lai is also alleged to have been designing a Web site to spread his ideas.
■ Government
Ma wants disaster plans
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday asked all the city government's departments to prepare emergency response plans for accidents or catastrophes, including military action by China. In a meeting focusing on disaster relief, Ma said that subtle tensions exist between Taiwan and China following the presidential election and that relations between Taiwan and the US also seem to have changed. Ma said that it is important to thoroughly prepare for natural disasters -- and wars as well -- because it is difficult to predict the actions of the Chinese Communists, who do not think rationally. Ma also said that the Chungcheng District and the Hsinyi District are two areas that China might target if it attacked Taipei City, and that damage could be limited through preparation.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
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