■ POLITICS
KMT to hold candidate polls
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said yesterday it would determine the candidates for the Taitung and Taichung legislative by-elections via polls. The party will hold polls from Friday to Sunday and announce the result next Monday. KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will approve the nominees on Nov. 11, the KMT said. The Taitung legislative by-election is to be held after former KMT legislator Justin Huang (黃健庭) resigned on Oct. 15 to run in the Taitung County commissioner election. Taitung County Commissioner Kuang Li-chen (鄺麗貞) may also join the race. The Taichung legislative by-election will be held to fill the seat left vacant by former KMT legislator Chiang Lien-fu (江連福), whose election status was annulled over vote-buying.
■ SOCIETY
Poppy Day registration
People interested in taking part in the annual Remembrance Day Event on Nov. 15 and the banquet on the evening of Nov. 14 should register with the British Trade and Cultural Office (BTCO) in Taipei, organizers said. The annual service will be held at the former Kinkaseki prisoner of war camp in Jinguashih (金瓜石), Taipei County. Bus transportation will be available. Reservations for both the banquet and bus can be made by calling Clare Lear at the BTCO on (02) 8758-2056 or by e-mail: Clare.Lear@fco.gov.uk.
■ HEALTH
Vaccines may come soon
Free cervical cancer vaccines might be available for young Aboriginal and low-income women by the end of this year, the Department of Health said. “As long as the policy is approved by the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, it can be implemented starting in December,” Bureau of Health Promotion Deputy Director Chao Kun-yu (趙坤郁) said in response to complaints about a delay in implementing the policy.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
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