■ Politics
Hsu backers tear up forms
The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Keelung branch yesterday set up a booth to collect signatures for a recall motion against Keelung Mayor Hsu Tsai-li (許財利), who has been convicted for corruption, but then met opposition from supporters of Hsu. A small group of Hsu's supporters, who claimed to be members of an "anti-recall motion alliance," yesterday went to the branch to protest against the signature campaign, tearing the signature forms up and threatening to withdraw from the KMT. "Hsu Tsai-li is innocent. Why doesn't the KMT go recall the president?" the supporters said. In response, KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said differing opinions were expected and respected, but the campaign to launch the recall motion against Hsu would continue. "The recall efforts mean that the KMT has the ability to reflect [on its conduct] ... We will handle the situation ourselves if something goes wrong among the party's members," he said.
■ Politics
Chen mulls renominations
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) began the re-nomination process of Control Yuan members yesterday. The Presidential Office issued a statement last night saying that it had sent letters to political parties yesterday asking them to recommend candidates within a week. The statement said that Chen agreed last Friday to sending out the letters and that he would send the new nominees to the legislature for confirmation. The president hoped to see the legislature confirm the new selections as soon as possible, preferably before the legislative session ends, the statement said. The legislature has refused to confirm the president's previous nominees for more than two years.
■ Society
`Ghost' tips off woman
A widow has recovered two trees guarding her husband's tomb, after she said his ghost told her through a dream that the trees had been stolen, reports said yesterday. According to the Chinese-language daily China Times and the ETToday.com Web site, an 80-year-old widow surnamed Cheng planted two osmanthus trees on a hill in Sijhih, Taipei County, with her husband many years ago. After her husband's death, Cheng transplanted the 2m-tall trees to her husband's tomb to "guard the tomb." The osmanthus tree is considered an auspicious tree, and is often used in such a role. Last Friday, in Cheng's dream, her husband complained that he was cold because the two trees had been stolen. Cheng went to check the tomb the next day, and found that both trees were gone, the reports said. Cheng told police, who then arrested two men that night as they were selling the trees to a flower-and-tree vendor.
■ Politics
DPP mulls May primary
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is expected to hold its presidential primary in May, Chairman Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday. He said the party might launch candidate registration in March or April. An opinion poll may be conducted among members in June so a final candidate could be decided upon by July, he said. The timetable still needed to be discussed by the party's Central Executive Committee, he said. Yu said the party would seek consensus with the Taiwan Solidarity Union in a bid to unite the pan-green camp for next year's legislative elections. He said the DPP would also begin a second round of coordination among its members who are thinking of running for election within two weeks.
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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