■ Kenyans win marathons
Runners from Kenya won the men's and women's events in the eighth Taroko International Marathon held on Saturday in Taroko Gorge National Park, Hualien County. Nicodemus Kiprono completed the 42.125km marathon in 2 hours 18 minutes to finish first in the men's event, while Taiwan's Tseng Yi-tsai (曾義財) placed third, finishing in 2 hours 36 minutes and 40 seconds, organizers said. Sally Jebichii Lagat finished first in the women's event, with a time of 2 hours and 50 minutes. The Taroko International Marathon, which was organized by the Chinese Taipei Road Running Association and sponsored by Taroko National Park Headquarters and the Hualien County Government, attracted thousands of local and foreign runners.
■ SOCIETY
Explosion traps two workers
Two workers were feared dead yesterday in an gas explosion at an underground construction site in Chiayi County yesterday afternoon. The men were working on a catchment channel that will allow water to pass between the Nanhua and the Tseng Wen reservoirs. The Chiayi County Fire Bureau said the explosion occurred at around 1pm near the boundary between Kaohsiung and Chiayi counties. The blast occurred inside the channel, the bureau said. Eyewitnesses accounts said the two workers drove a construction vehicle into the tunnel shortly before the explosion and then were trapped inside the tunnel, the bureau said. Rescue efforts were hampered by high levels of carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide inside the tunnel. Rescue workers were working overnight to dissipate the gas and try to reach the trapped pair.
■ SOCIETY
Taiwanese win in Germany
Taiwanese taking part in the 2007 Nuremberg International Invention Exhibition have won 57 awards, breaking last year's record of 34 awards. Some 800 works by inventors representing 34 countries were entered in the four-day annual event in Nuremberg, Germany, that ended yesterday. The Taiwanese delegation was composed mainly of students. The 57 awards included 12 gold, 29 silver, 14 bronze and two special awards. Two junior-high school students won gold medals. Shen Che-wei (沈哲緯) won his for inventing an electric socket that can be turned on or off with the touch of a finger. Yang Cheng-fa (楊正發), received a gold for his aluminum foil package with a hidden straw. Hsieh Meng-han (謝孟翰) and Liu Hsing-hung (劉星宏), two students of National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, and Liu Yen-hung (劉彥宏), a student of Shih Chien University, jointly designed an engine that can burn a variety of fuels.
■ diplomacy
Taiwan to donate more cash
Taiwan will donate an additional US$200,000 to the Dominican Republic to help with relief operations after Hurricane Noel battered the Caribbean nation last week, inflicting a heavy toll on human lives and property, an official announced yesterday. Phoebe Yeh (葉非比), deputy spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the government had already donated US$25,000 on Wednesday to the Dominican Ministry of Agriculture with a view to helping reduce farmers' losses. Having evaluated the situation in the Dominican Republic, one of Taiwan's diplomatic allies, the government decided to donate an additional US$200,000 to the country to assist in relief operations, Yeh said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
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