Culture
Farmers try to break record
A total of 1,200 Taiwanese farmers will try to break the Guinness World Record for the biggest number of people simultaneously transplanting rice seedlings on a plot of land next week, the Council of Agriculture said yesterday. The farmers will attempt to transplant rice seedlings on a 2 hectare plot of land in under 25 minutes, the council said. The event will be held in Taoyuan County on Aug. 18. The purpose of the event is to promote rice consumption in Taiwan, the council said. According to Guinness World Records, the current record was set on May 6, 2010, and stands at 904 people on a 1.6 hectare plot of land in 30 minutes, 35 seconds.
Culture
Taiwanese art in Venice
A large-scale corrugated paper artwork featuring Taiwan’s natural scenery will be displayed at an international architectural exhibition in Venice later this month, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The piece is expected to attract the attention of the foreign media,” said Hsu Mien-sheng (徐勉生), director-general of the ministry’s Department of European Affairs. The artwork, titled Enlightenment from Geography, will be on display from Aug. 27 to Nov. 25 at the Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition, a major contemporary art show. Describing Taiwan’s presence at the show as an “exhibition of soft power,” Hsu said the foreign ministry would continue to support cultural exchanges. The paper artwork would allow visitors to gain a sense of Taiwan’s natural wonders and street scenes, said Liao Wei-li (廖偉立), one of the piece’s designers and an architect at Taiwan-based AMBi Studio, adding that the work also features audio that features sounds of nature and the city.
ENERGY
Kaohsiung aims to go solar
The Greater Kaohsiung Government aims to generate 100,000 watt-peak (Wp) of electricity from local solar panels for the whole of this year, according to the city’s Office of Building Administration. To achieve this, the city government has been cooperating with the Bureau of Energy’s Million Rooftop Photovoltaics project to encourage local households and businesses to install solar panels and expand solar energy facilities, the office said. The city government has established new laws that relax regulations for installing rooftop photovoltaic facilities and is offering subsidies as part of its solar energy execution plan, the office said. The southern city receives over 2,100 hours of sunlight per year, and is therefore better positioned to set up solar energy facilities than Taiwan’s northern and central areas, said Yang Ming-chou (楊明州), chief of the city’s Public Works Bureau. The bureau aims to build solar energy facilities with a combined size of 10 Kaohsiung National Stadiums over the next three years, Yang said.
EDUCATION
Students debate
Students from 16 universities from Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Russia and Australia are to go head-to-head in a debating competition tomorrow. The theme of the five-day contest will be Taiwan’s public policies, said the National Chiao Tung University’s (NCTU) Department of Communication and Technology, the organizer of the contest. Taiwan’s National Chengchi University and Soochow University will face the University of Malaya and China’s Soochow University respectively in the preliminary round of the competition, which runs from tomorrow until Thursday at NCTU’s College of Hakka Studies.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
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