■ ENVIRONMENT
CDs offer 'green' fireworks
The Taipei City Government Department of Environmental Protection is offering free "firecracker sound" CDs to residents to make the Lunar New Year safer and more environmentally friendly. Department officials said the CDs were being offered to encourage people not to use firecrackers during the festive season to cut down on air and noise pollution and have a safe holiday. To provide an alternative, the department made audio recordings of firecracker sounds available on its Web site prior to last year's Lunar New Year holidays. Copies of the CD can be picked up for free at the department's main office in Xinyi District (信義), the officials said, adding that the audio file is also available on the department's Web site.
■ GOVERNMENT
Superstition leads to change
National ID card numbers will no longer have more than one number "4" in the future, Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) said in a news release yesterday. "Because the number '4' is traditionally considered an unlucky number, [the ministry] stopped issuing national ID cards ending in '4' in 2000," the statement said. "But the number `4' can still appear on national IDs." The number "4" is considered an unlucky number because the Mandarin pronunciation, si, sounds similar to the word for "death." The statement said avoiding the number "4" completely would be too difficult because 45 percent of national ID numbers would have to be replaced. Instead, the ministry will allow no more than one "4" on new national ID cards. The ministry will also allow "anybody whose national ID number contains a number '4' to apply to change their national ID number," the statement said.
■ CRIME
China targets Web site
Police in China have shut down a Taiwan-based Web site that featured Chinese women in erotic footage and have arrested 33 people involved in the operation, China's state media reported on Wednesday. Viewers, mostly in Taiwan, paid to watch footage taken in Guangdong Province, Xinhua news agency said. The site had been in operation for more than one year and took in more than US$137,000 in three months, it said. Police told Xinhua that 23 of those arrested were performers for the site at 12 locations. The other 10 helped manage the operation. Two Taiwanese were among the 10 organizers, the report said without elaborating.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
A former soldier and an active-duty army officer were yesterday indicted for allegedly selling classified military training materials to a Chinese intelligence operative for a total of NT$79,440. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Chen Tai-yin (陳泰尹) and Lee Chun-ta (李俊達) for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法) and the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例). Chen left the military in September 2013 after serving alongside then-staff sergeant Lee, now an army lieutenant, at the 21st Artillery Command of the army’s Sixth Corps from 2011 to 2013, according to the indictment. Chen met a Chinese intelligence operative identified as “Wang” (王) through a friend in November
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