■CRIME
Man eggs Presidential Office
A 57-year-old man was arrested in Taipei yesterday for throwing eggs at the Presidential Office. They said the suspect, surnamed Lee, was wearing a white T-shirt decorated with different colored Chinese characters reading “quality of life is affected” and “living is more important.” He told the police that he was unhappy with his quality of life and had taken the high-speed rail from Chiayi to protest. Lee bought a dozen eggs from a convenience store and arrived at the front of the Presidential Office around 3:30pm. Hsueh Wen-jung (薛文容), deputy director and spokesman of Taipei City Police Department’s Zhongzheng First Precinct, said the military police guarding the building stopped Lee and then handed him over to the police.
■EDUCATION
Students win IChO medals
Four Taiwanese captured two gold medals, one silver and one bronze at the week-long 2008 International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) for high-school students in Budapest, Hungary, which concluded on Sunday. The two gold medalists are Tsai Cheng-ting (蔡政廷), a student at the private Weiger High School in Taipei, and Ting Po-chieh (丁柏傑) from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School. Lai Cheng-yu (賴政優) of Jianguo High School won the silver medal and Li Che-hao (黎哲豪) of Wu Ling Senior High School in Taoyuan County took a bronze. Sixty-nine countries sent teams to this year’s contest, which consists of chemistry tests and experiments, as well as theoretical and practical questions in all areas of chemistry. The delegation will tour Hungary this week before returning home on Friday. The IChO, one of the International Science Olympiads, was first held in Prague in 1968 and has been held every year since, with the exception of 1971.
■HEALTH
KRTC disinfects carriages
All MRT carriages in Kaohsiung City have been disinfected on a daily basis in recent weeks to prevent the spread of enterovirus, a Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) spokesman said on Sunday. The company has 126 carriages, which serve more than 150,000 passengers a day, said Huang Yi-chung (黃一中), a KRTC department chief in charge of public affairs. “During peak hours, MRT carriages tend to be very crowded and passengers often touch the doors, windows, straps and armrests which could become virus spreading sources,” he said. Since the number of suspected and confirmed severe enterovirus cases increased significantly last month, Huang said the KRTC has been disinfecting its carriages every day.
■TRANSPORT
CAL plane has engine woes
A China Airlines (CAL) plane traveling from Hokkaido, Japan, to Taoyuan International Airport began to experience engine problems just before 8pm last Thursday and was forced to make an emergency landing at Naha Airport in Okinawa, the Kyodo News Agency reported yesterday. None of the crew members or passengers was hurt. Kyodo said that the pilot of the Boeing 737 noticed that the instrument panel indicated a problem with the right engine at about 7:50pm, when the plane was about 160km east of Naha. The pilot decided to shut down the engine and radioed the airport to request permission to make an emergency landing. CAL maintenance workers are examining the plane to try to determine the cause of the engine problems, the report said.
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