■ POLITCS
KMT seeks clarifications
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) camp yesterday urged Presidential Office Secretary-General Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) to clarify within three days allegations that Ma had acted as a student spy for the KMT. Yeh, the campaign director for Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), said on Tuesday that Ma had been hired by KMT authorities to spy on independence activists in the US -- including Carnegie Mellon University associate professor Chen Wen-chen (陳文成) -- when the former was a student in the US. Chen was found dead on the grounds of National Taiwan University a day after being questioned by secret police in 1981. In an editorial written at the time, Ma said the cause of death was either accident or murder. Ma spokesman Luo Chih-chiang (羅智強) yesterday denied Yeh's accusation and said the Ma camp would file a defamation lawsuit against Yeh if she failed to substantiate the accusations within three days.
■ POLITICS
Scholarship budget frozen
Opposition lawmakers on the legislature's Education and Culture Committee froze some funding for foreign students during a budget review session yesterday. They told the Ministry of Education to present a more comprehensive proposal on foreign student scholarships before they would consider releasing the remaining budget. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Teh-fu (林德福) asked why the government spends millions to aid foreign students while Taiwanese struggle to pay tuition fees. Ministry officials said foreign students who receive scholarships are indispensable because they provide an international perspective for local students. They also said 70 percent of scholarship recipients end up working for Taiwanese companies after graduation. The committee urged ministry officials to be impartial when they are selecting scholarship recipients. Eligibility should be based on academic records, not on nationality because "shoring up Taiwan's diplomacy" was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' job, not the education ministry's, KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) said.
■ CULTURE
Aboriginal expo scheduled
The 2007 Taiwan Aboriginal Tribes Expo is scheduled to take place in Taipei from Nov. 17 to Nov. 24, the Council of Indigenous Peoples said yesterday. The expo will be held at the Xinyi Public Assembly Hall, a former military dependents' village that is now a civic space. The exhibition is intended to promote Aboriginal cultures and to market their products, the council said. Pavilions and stalls will feature crafts and other products, including Aboriginal delicacies. Anyone interested in setting up a stall should contact the council before Oct. 26.
■ ENERGY
Researchers find enzyme
A National Taiwan Ocean University research team has discovered an enzyme at undersea hydrothermal vents near Turtle Island (龜山島) in Ilan County, which could be used in the production of biomass energy, Tzou Wen-hsiung (鄒文雄), a professor of at the Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, said on Tuesday. The enzyme -- which is derived from Thermoanaerobacterium sp. NTOU2 -- can be used to decompose agricultural crops to produce biomass energy in the form of alcohol, Tzou said. He said the university was applying for patent rights for the application of their research to industrial processes involving the enzyme. He said it would take about one year before the enzyme could be marketed.
Staff writer, with CNA";
■ TRANSPORTATION
More bike decks on the way
The Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) is to install additional two-deck bicycle parking racks outside the Yuanshan MRT Station to provide more parking space for Taipei City cyclists, a TRTC spokesman said yesterday. The TRTC already provides a total of more than 9,800 bike parking spaces outside several MRT stations, the spokesman said. The TRTC installed the first two-deck bike racks outside Beitou MRT station in 2004, then added racks at Jiantan, Fuzhong and Gongguang stations, providing nearly 1,100 parking spaces. The spokesman said the racks at Beitou station were made in Japan and cost more than NT$14,000 each, while the two-deck racks installed outside other stations were made in Taiwan and cost NT$8,000 each.
■ SOCIETY
Hualien area scoops prize
A community in Hualien County won the prestigious Presidential Cultural Award yesterday for its efforts in promoting sustainable community development. Starting with four couples and their families in 1996, the community in Fengtien Village (豐田) of Shoufeng Township (壽豐) in Hualien has made itself a role model in terms of community development over the past 11 years. Members of the community -- who call themselves the Ox Plough Working Group -- have made business development, welfare and medicare, public order, humanities and education, environmental protection and landscape building their six priorities. The group began to promote an in-depth tour of Fengtien in 1998, earning at least NT$1 million (US$30,700) per year for the community and introducing the area to people from the rest of the country.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “[we] appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe