■SPORTS
World Games to hold draw
The World Games 2009 Kaohsiung Organizing Committee (KOC) will give away a wide range of prizes in a lucky draw in an attempt to promote the Games and boost ticket sales, KOC chief executive officer Emily Hsu (許釗娟) said yesterday. Ticket stubs from the concert held during the opening of the main stadium, from the opening and closing ceremonies of the World Games, and from any of the 31 World Games sports events can be entered in the lucky draw that will be held in early August at Kaohsiung City Hall, Hsu said. The top prize will be a luxury apartment near the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. Other prizes will include an imported sedan, six airline tickets, vouchers for accommodation at five-star hotels and 15,000 Kaohsiung metro I-Pass cards, Hsu said.
■AGRICULTURE
COA to open forest parks
The Council of Agriculture (COA) will open three forest recreation parks next year, in 2011 and 2012 in Hualien, Chiayi and Pingtung counties, COA Deputy Minister Hu Sing-hwa (胡興華) said yesterday. Hu said the government planned to establish 18 recreation parks, develop a nationwide system of walking trails and set up eight nature education centers to encourage the public to enjoy nature. The country’s many public forest recreation parks have been certified under the ISO9001 international quality management system, he said. To give children a chance to get closer to nature, the COA since 2007 has been promoting the establishment of nature education centers with the aim of creating the country’s biggest platform for environmental education, Hu said.
■CRIME
Sewn lips can’t talk
A man has been arrested for allegedly sewing shut the lips of another man to stop him from talking about a disagreement over money, media reported yesterday. The accused, identified only by his surname Wang (王), decided to punish another man for talking to others about a money dispute between the two, the TV channel ETTV reported. While Wang’s friends overpowered the victim, whose name was given as Chang (張), Wang allegedly used a needle and thread late on Tuesday to sew up Chang’s mouth, ETTV said. Both Wang and Chang are about 20. Neighbors in Taichung heard Chang’s screams and alerted police, who arrived at the scene and arrested Wang. Chang received treatment at a hospital.
■CRIME
Counterfeit vouchers seized
Aviation police and Taipei customs officials seized nearly 1,000 counterfeit consumer vouchers hidden in a consignment of cargo from Hong Kong, leading to the arrest of two suspects on Wednesday. Police turned the suspects over to the Taoyuan District Prosecutors Office, which is investigating the first case of counterfeit consumer vouchers recorded in the country. They said the 989 fake vouchers were in NT$500 denominations, giving them a total face value of NT$494,500. Police said the quality of the counterfeit vouchers was shoddy and that it would not be difficult to tell the differences between the fake and genuine vouchers, police said, adding that the character for “exchange” printed in the “not to be exchanged for cash, no change given” section of the voucher was in simplified Mandarin rather than traditional characters, providing another clue to their lack of authenticity.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
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