■ Society
English festival to open
The 2005 English Living Environment Carnival will open tomorrow at Taipei 101 -- the world's tallest building -- to show what Taiwan has achieved in the past year in making its environment more convenient and friendly to native speakers of English. The three-day annual event, now in its third year, will begin at 2pm with a ceremony on Taipei 101's fifth floor to issue citations to those who have made contributions to improving Taiwan's living environment for English-speaking people. More than 20 government agencies and private organizations, including schools, will have exhibition stalls to display their achievements in responding to the government's call to improve the living environment in Taiwan for English-speaking people. There will also be plays, fashion shows, dances, concerts, lot-drawings, awards for correct answers to questions and free gifts for visitors.
■ Society
Ninjas to sneak into Taiwan
A group of ninjas from Japan is set to tour Taiwan, according to a report in the Japanese-language Mainichi Shimbun. The ninjas will make a six-day tour of the country, with appearances in Taipei and Kaohsiung, the paper said. The martial artists are from the Iga-ryu Ninja sect, which is from Iga Ueno City, in Mie Prefecture. According to the Mainichi, which named no sources for the information, the tour will start on Jan. 12, and is being organized by a Japanese tourism organization. "After Taiwan, we want to stealthily work our way into South Korea, America and Europe," the newspaper quoted one of the ninjas as saying.
■ Society
Family doesn't want sperm
Gynecologist Lee Mao-sheng (李茂盛) said on Friday that the family of Army Captain Sun Chi-hsiang (孫吉祥), who died as the result of an accident on Sept. 7, had requested that he destroy the sperm harvested from Sun after his death. Sun's widow Lee Hsing-yu (李幸育) and his parents had originally requested that the Department of Health (DOH) make an exception to allow the newly wed Lee Hsing-yu to legally retrieve some sperm for in-vitro fertilization. The DOH denied the request. Lee Mao-sheng said the reasons stated in the request were that the family did not want Sun's son to be fatherless, that they did not want to adversely affect Lee Hsing-yu's future marital prospects, and that there was a risk the child would have birth defects due to defects in the harvested sperm. Lee Mao-sheng then received a phone call from a distraught Lee Hsing-yu asking for more time for discussions with the Sun family before destroying the sperm. Lee Mao-sheng said he respected the family's wishes, but, he added, "why not wait six months and let Lee [Hsing-yu] regain her balance before making a decision."
■ Cross-strait ties
International role urged
The international community must play a role to prevent China from internalizing the issue of Taiwan and stop it from attacking the country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a position paper released recently. The foreign ministry has sent the paper, written in English, to overseas missions. The ministry warned that if the international community accepts China's rhetoric that the Taiwan issue is an internal affair, then it will only encourage Beijing to launch an attack against Taiwan. To avoid this, the UN must send envoys or inspection groups to assess the security in the Taiwan Strait, and regularly report their findings to the UN.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
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