■ SOCIETY
Sushi record slips by
A failed attempt to make the world's longest roll of sushi was reported in Hualien County on Saturday. The plan was unsucccessful despite drawing around 2,500 people to help out. According to the Yuli (玉里)-based Yuhsi Farmers' Association, which launched the challenge to the existing Guinness World Record for the longest roll of sushi at 1,500m, 1,800 people gathered to make a roll of sushi with a planned length of 1,501m. The bid attracted many local residents for the chane to help set a world record. However, the party of up to 2,500 sushi makers failed because of a shortage of food materials, including rice, cucumbers and laver. Association members said they would make another attempt to set the record next year.
■ CHARITY
Library needs `wheels'
A pediatric cardiac surgeon in Hualien County is soliciting donations for a new "library on wheels" to allow underprivileged Aboriginal children in remote areas to have access to more books. Chen Li-yun (陳麗雲), a mother of three, built her first library on wheels using a 20 foot (6.1m) shipping container mounted on a leased trailer and stocked it with about 1,000 illustrated children's books. That was four years ago, but the mobile library had to end its visits to coastal and remote mountain communities recently because of a lack of funds. It is now stationed at Tongmen Elementary School in Tongmen Village (銅門), Hsiulin Township (秀林). Chen expressed her appreciation to volunteer mothers around the county who had helped out by reading stories to children. Some volunteers stayed overnight and even slept on the floor of the library, she said.
■ SOCIETY
Foreigners wanted
Foreigners who are interested in competing in the "2008 If I Were the President of Taiwan" Chinese-language speech competition need to sign up before Jan. 5, the contest's co-sponsors, National Taiwan Normal University and Radio Taiwan International, announced yesterday. The preliminary round will be held at NTNU on Jan. 13 and the top twenty winners will face off a week later at the radio station for the top cash prize of NT$50,000. As an effort to encourage foreigners to learn the different languages in Taiwan, judges will give extra points to those who can use any two of three designated languages in their speeches: Mandarin, Hoklo, and Hakka. Registration forms can be downloaded from Radio Taiwan International's official Web site at www.rti.org.tw or call (02) 2885-6286 ext 723 for details.
■ EDUCATION
Chief defends expense
The director of Kaohsiung City's education bureau, Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀), yesterday defended holding bureau staff meetings at a luxury resort. Cheng made the comments after the Chinese-language Apple Daily reported yesterday that the bureau spent NT$250,000 (US$7,600) on holding seminars at the Yoho Spa & Resorts in Kenting for 75 city government officials on Friday and Saturday. The story criticized the bureau for wasting public funds despite the fact that Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) on Nov. 13 had promised to review the amount of money government agencies spend each year on meetings and training seminars held in resorts and luxury hotels. Cheng said yesterday that the bureau had followed Cabinet regulations on the expenditure for government seminars, adding that it deliberately chose to hold the seminars during Kenting's off-season.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
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,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
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
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