■ ENVIRONMENT
Dead fish litter Penghu
Tonnes of fish, from carp to tropical specimens, have washed up dead along 320km of Penghu's beaches because of low temperatures earlier this month, Penghu County environmental staffer Hsu Ching-fang said yesterday. About 45 tonnes of fish, both wild and farmed, have appeared on the beaches since Feb. 14, Hsu said. Media reports said yesterday that 10 times that amount of dead fish were still in the water, adding it was the worst mass killing off Penghu in 30 years. "Every beach in Penghu has been hit with fish in varying amounts," Hsu said. "This is something we haven't seen before." Local schools have sent their students to help with the clean-up effort. The government has allocated NT$1 million (US$34,000) for clean-up effortss, Hsu said, adding that tourists can still use the beaches.
■ DIPLOMACY
NSC chief going to Seoul
National Security Council Secretary-General Mark Chen (陳唐山) will attend South Korean president-elect Lee Myung-bak's inauguration on Monday on behalf of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), a Presidential Office source said yesterday. The president decided on Thursday to have the NSC chief lead the Taiwanese delegation to the ceremony in Seoul, the official said. Lee will be sworn in as South Korea's 17th president.
■ ECONOMY
DGBAS says deficit smaller
The government's fiscal deficit dropped to NT$30 billion (US$960 million) last year, thanks to a 5.7 percent economic growth rate and an increase in tax revenue, Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) Director-General Hsu Jan-yau said yesterday. Local companies enjoyed earnings growth and the government registered an increase in overall tax revenue as a result of the country's stable economic growth last year, Hsu said. The total tax revenue totalled NT$1.7 trillion last year, surpassing the budgeted level by NT$120 billion, with the central government seeing an increase of NT$90 billion in tax revenue, Hsu said, adding that the increase has been reflected in the narrowing of the fiscal deficit. Preliminary calculations show the overall budget surplus amounted to nearly NT$70 billion. While taking the special budget deficit into account, the government's deficit stood at NT$30 billion, a huge drop from a NT$314.7 billion deficit in 2003, Hsu said.
■ MEDICINE
Trial volunteers sought
The Buddhist Tzu Chi General Hospital said yesterday that it was looking for people willing to participate in a stem cell therapy trial project using umbilical cord blood for spinal cord injuries. Chen Tze-yung (陳子勇), vice president of the hospital's Taichung branch and project chief, said they hope to get 80 volunteers for the first observation stage of the trial from March 1 to June 30. Tzu Chi hospitals' research efforts into spinal cord therapy have gained recognition both at home and abroad, Chen said, as well as sponsorship money from the US, Hong Kong and China for this project. The project will not involve any invasive examinations or treatment and will not require the people to stop their regular treatments, he said. The hospital will only collect and register the information of the patients, he said.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
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