■ Aid given to Israeli group
Taiwan Representative to Israel Ting Gan-cheng (丁干城) on Friday donated US$10,000 to Sparrow, an Israeli environmental group. Ting said that although Taiwan was excluded from international environmental organizations, the nation had since 1996 sponsored 110 international nature conservation organizations. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) proposed a world environmental organization earlier this year with the aim of protecting the environment, Ting said. He said Taiwan also needed friends around the world to help it take part in the international efforts to help the environment and that he was happy to donate the money to Sparrow on behalf of the government. Sparrow was founded in 2005 and its members are mostly pilots who are concerned about the environment. They volunteer to fly over Israeli nature conservation parks to monitor poaching, illegal dumping of waste and the destruction of crucial sea turtle habitat.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Penghu gets help on waste
The Kaohsiung City Government has agreed to help the Penghu County Government deal with its garbage problem by handling as much as 60 tonnes of its garbage. Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) offered the help during a visit by Penghu County Commissioner Wang Chien-fa (王乾發) on Friday. Wang told Chen that landfill sites in Penghu were filled to capacity. The central government's refusal to allow Penghu County to build an incinerator for fear it might pollute the island chain's environment means that the county is unable to deal with its waste problem on its own. Chen said the Kaohsiung City Government was willing to help Penghu preserve its status as an unspoilt part of Taiwan. The garbage will be transported from Penghu by ship and burned in Kaohsiung's incinerator, at a cost of NT$730 per tonne.
■ POLITICS
Chen denies Chang threat
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday denied a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News claiming that Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) had threatened to resign should the Cabinet not be allowed to adjust gasoline prices in accordance with the floating pricing mechanism. The Cabinet's insistence on increasing oil prices in accordance with the mechanism has attracted the concern of Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), who is in favor of government intervention on oil prices. Cabinet Secretary-General Chen Chin-jun (陳景峻) said yesterday that the news report was "groundless."
■ POLITICS
Events mark anniversary
The Straits Exchange Foundation will organize a series of activities to mark the 20th anniversary of cross-strait exchanges. The activities include the screening of a documentary chronicling the 20-year history of cross-strait exchanges -- produced through a collaboration between the foundation and the Public Television Service -- said Michael You (游盈隆), secretary-general and vice chairman of the foundation. The foundation will also hold a two-day symposium at the Grand Hotel in Taipei, starting on Dec. 7, and later publish the papers and symposium minutes, You said. The foundation hopes to create an opportunity to learn and exchange ideas concerning its policies on cross-strait exchanges, he said.
■ Park to stage WWII service
This year's annual Remembrance Day service in honor of those who fought and died in World War II will be held on Nov. 18 at the POW Memorial Park on the site of the former Kinkaseki POW Camp in Jinguashih (金瓜石), Taipei County. The event, jointly organized by the Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society and the Canadian Trade Office, will also honor the more than 4,300 Allied POWs who were held in 15 forced labor camps around Taiwan. A POW banquet will also be held on the evening of Nov. 17 at the Imperial Hotel on Linsen N Road at a cost of NT$1,000 per person. The Canadian Society is laying on buses for those interested in attending the Sunday service as there is no parking for private vehicles at the memorial site. Reservations for both the banquet and bus can be made by calling Crystal Hsu at the Canadian Trade Office on (02) 2544-3461. More details can be found by visiting www.powtaiwan.org.
■ sport
Kaohsiung ready for games
Kaohsiung meets the requirements to host the 2009 World Games and the city should have no problem staging the games, the head of the International World Games Association (IWGA) said yesterday. IWGA Chairman Ron Froehlich made the remarks after meeting Chi Cheng (紀政), an Olympic medalist who serves as the executive officer of the Kaohsiung Organizing Committee for the World Games. Froehlich confirmed that China lodged a protest with the International Olympic Games (IOC) against Kaohsiung's hosting the World Games, but he said that Chinese Taipei is an IOC member and that it meets the requirements for hosting the games. He expressed the hope that Kaohsiung will make every effort to make the games a success.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
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