■ 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.
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
Taiwan’s Li Yu-hsiang performs in the men’s singles figure skating short program at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. Li finished 24th with a score of 72.41 to advance to Saturday’s free skate portion of the event. He is the first Taiwanese to qualify for the free skate of men’s singles figure skating at the Olympics since David Liu in 1992.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
A KFC branch in Kaohsiung may be fined between NT$60,000 and NT$200 million (US$1,907 and US$6.37 million), after a customer yesterday found an entire AAA battery inside an egg tart, the Kaohsiung Department of Health said today. The customer was about to microwave a box of egg tarts they had bought at the fast-food restaurant’s Nanzih (楠梓) branch when they checked the bottom and saw a dark shadow inside one of them, they said in a Threads post. The customer filmed themself taking the egg tart apart to reveal an entire AAA battery inside, which apparently showed signs of damage. Surveillance footage showed
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