■ Politics
KMT primary heats up
Heating up competition within the pan-blue camp for Taipei County commissioner, former minister of justice Liao Cheng-hao (廖正豪) registered yesterday to enter the party's preliminaries for the seat. Liao said that he had restored his party membership a month ago, and will have the necessary 5,000 signatures needed to qualify for the preliminaries. There are five other competitors: KMT legislators Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) and Chou Hsi-wei (周錫瑋); Wang Lin-huei (王玲惠), head of the Taipei County Federation of Chinese Business Women, and Sanchung Mayor Lee Chien-lung (李乾龍). Chou created a scandal last week when he left the People First Party and registered with the KMT in order to enter the race.
■ Crime
Five men jailed in Vietnam
Five Taiwanese men were given jail terms ranging from two to nine years for using fake travelers checks in Vietnam. Lee Yao-yu, Wong Chi-feng, Chang Yi-yu, Liu Che-an and Su Wen-hsien used 21 fake checks to buy around US$95,000 worth of gold jewelry, diamonds and laptops last July, said Bui Kim Dung, an official of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court. "Lee and Wong were both sentenced to nine years in jail for leading the fraud," Dung said. "Chang and Liu were given jail terms of eight years, while Su Wen-hsien got two years." The counterfeit checks were made in Taiwan and the five men were part of a gang who had been passing off fake checks there. The men were arrested after they had been using the fake checks for several days.
■ Diplomacy
Greater outreach urged
Taiwan should develop the ability to establish an agenda at major events such as the APEC forum to boost its influence, Vice Premier Wu Rong-i (吳榮義) said yesterday. Wu made the remarks while attending an APEC operations seminar sponsored by the Taiwan APEC Study Center. Wu noted that APEC and the WTO are two international organizations that Taiwan participates in, and that the APEC leaders' meeting is the only venue where its officials can get together with world leaders and officials. He said that no publicity drive could be more effective to demonstrate the nation's sovereignty than Taiwanese leaders mingling with other leaders. But he said that the agenda of the APEC meeting has been affected by the changing international political and economic situation, and the government has to keep abreast of the latest developments to work out how Taiwan can increase its presence.
■ Architecture
Urban planners visit Stuttgart
A delegation headed by Kaohsiung County Commissioner Yang Chiu-hsing (楊秋興) visited Stuttgart on Sunday to inspect the city's urban planning and greening project. Stuttgart, which used to be an overcrowded, overdeveloped industrial city, has undergone a major transformation in recent years under a municipal government "greening" plan to make the city into a European commercial and industrial center with a high-quality living environment to attract people to live, work and invest. Yang praised the city for its greening efforts, saying during the one-day visit that Kaohsiung County can learn from it in planning a university town in Yenchao Township and an urban park at the site of the former Weiwu military barracks.
■ Crime
Bounty on forgers raised
The reward for information leading to the arrest or indictment of forgers has been raised to NT$500,000 from NT$200,000, according to the Intellectual Property Office under the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The office urged people to use a toll-free hotline (080-001-6597) to report forgers. An official said that Web sites are replacing shops as the most popular places for selling forged products.
■ Crime
Four nabbed for forgery
Four men were arrested yesterday for producing fake Microsoft certificates of authenticity. Computers with the fake stickers were first found in Australia last July, and Australian police tracked the maker down to this country. Acting on a tip-off from Australian officials, Taipei police raided a workshop in Sungshan, Taipei City, yesterday. Four people were arrested along with 33 sheets of a wide variety of fake certificates for Windows 98, Windows XP and other software.
■ Diplomacy
Troupe performs overseas
The Ming Hwa Yuan Taiwanese Opera troupe is scheduled to perform in Bangkok this weekend to celebrate the 55th anniversary of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit's marriage and the 50th birthday of Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorne. At the invitation of the Thai government, the opera troupe, founded in 1929, will present its most popular play, The Living Buddha Chikung. The award-winning play, which premiered in 1983, features Buddhist truths, principles and practices. It is perfect for the play to be performed in a Buddhist country, the head of the troupe, Chen Sheng-fu (陳勝福), said yesterday.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported