■ Festivals
Beef noodles on wheels
To compete with street vendors selling coffee or breakfast from their vans, the organizer of the 2005 Beef Noodle Festival adopted the idea of doing business on the move by refitting a van into a vehicle that can serve beef soup. Starting today through Thursday, the van, loaded with four thermos flasks, will put up posters featuring the 2005 Beef Noodle Festival while cruising the thoroughfares of Taipei City, giving away beef soup for free during the day. It will be stationed in the Living Mall and the square in front of the Taipei City Hall after 5pm.
■ Community
Volunteers clean up
Over 70,000 volunteers from 320 organizations around Taiwan, equipped with brooms, tongs and garbage bags, joined the largest "clean up the island" campaign in five years that yesterday simultaneously kicked off at 1,598 spots around the nation. Groups of volunteer workers picked up waste along the Keelung River in Taipei City and sorted it for recycling. A team of around 30 college students in northern Taiwan caught the most attention as all its members roller-skated along the bicycle track along the river at the Pailing Riverbank Park (百齡河濱公園), showing of dazzling skating skills while performing the public service. The campaign was run from Paisha Bay (白沙灣) in Taipei County in the north to Kenting National Park (墾丁國家公園) in the south, Tungying (東引) on the outlying island of Matsu (馬祖) in the west and Lungtung (龍洞) in the east, according to the organizers.
■ Diplomacy
Soong no messenger
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has never asked opposition People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) to pass on any messages to Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), a Presidential Office spokesman said over the weekend. James Huang (黃志芳) a Presidential Office deputy secretary-general, made the remarks after James Keith, a US State Department senior adviser, said that Soong met Hu and other Chinese leaders in Beijing on May 12 this year and passed on the message that Chen was willing to engage in dialogue with Beijing, using a flexible formulation about what constitutes "one China." Huang said that he didn't know where the US State Department got its information from and that the State Department has not contacted the Presidential Office regarding the matter. One thing is certain, however, and that is that Chen has never asked Soong to give any messages to the Chinese leadership, Huang said.
■ Politics
No apologies, Hsieh says
Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday said that a demand by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers that he apologize for errors in the Kaohsiung MRT project is like forcing him to admit something he did not do. An apology should come from the bottom of the heart, Hsieh said. In this case, the premier said that even if he apologizes, it will not mean anything because the responsibility is not his. In addition, the KMT lawmakers accused him of making a variety of wrong decisions during his term as Kaohsiung City mayor, because they watched related TV reports that said Hsieh should take the responsibility for the project's shortcomings. This is just unfair and ridiculous, he said. Meanwhile, the KMT caucus yesterday said that the DPP should take the responsibility for the premier being banned for merely carrying out his administrative briefing.
‘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
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
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
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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