■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.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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