■ CRIME
Shih wins slander lawsuit
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Wang Shih-cheng (王世堅) was found guilty yesterday of slandering former DPP chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德) and New Aspect Cultural and Educational Foundation chairman Hsu Po-yun (�?�). The Taipei District Court sentenced Wang to 25 days in prison. The sentence may be commuted to a fine. Yesterday's ruling is final. Shih led demonstrations against President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in the summer and autumn of 2006. Wang told a press conference on Sept. 23, 2006, that Hsu had gone to China on Sept. 21 to meet with top Chinese officials and report on the progress of the anti-Chen movement. Wang said Shih had sent Hsu. The court said in its ruling that Wang had offered no evidence to back his accusation.
■ SOCIETY
Aboriginal population grows
The number of Aborigines totaled 484,000 at the end of last year, accounting for 2.1 percent of the population, a report released yesterday by the Ministry of the Interior showed. The number marked an increase of 1.95 percent from 2006, much higher than the growth rate of the total population, 0.36 percent, the report said. A total of 256,000, or 52.9 percent, of Aborigines live in mountainous areas. The Amis accounted for the largest number, at 173,000, followed by the Atayal and the Paiwan, each accounting for approximately 80,000 people. Hualien and Taitung counties have the largest Aboriginal populations, with 33.8 percent of Taitung's population and 26 percent of Hualien's being Aboriginal.
■ EDUCATION
Ministry lauds Web project
An Internet afterschool program launched by the Ministry of Education has benefited more than 100 students so far, the ministry said yesterday. The program, designed to enhance the education of underprivileged children in remote areas via the Internet, has benefited more than 100 primary and junior high school students from Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Nantou and Kaohsiung counties since it was launched in November 2006, the ministry said. Fu Jen Catholic University in Taipei County, National Chi Nan University in Nantou County and Wen Tzao Ursuline College in Kaohsiung City administer the project in cooperation with the ministry. The NT$8.5 million (US$27,000) program aims to offer extra educational assistance to students to narrow the gap between urban and rural areas and between rich and poor, the ministry said.
■ POLITICS
DPP whip dismisses poll
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) yesterday shrugged off the results of a newspaper poll of public approval for the presidential candidates. Lai dismissed the results of a United Daily News survey conducted the day before that claimed Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his running mate, Vincent Siew (蕭萬長), had an approval rating of 56 percent, while the DPP's Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and his running mate, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), had an approval rating of just 18 percent. Lai said that the information he had was very different from the daily's poll, saying that "if the poll were true, the Ma-Siew ticket should probably set off firecrackers now in celebration." He did not elaborate on his information or give its source. He said the aim of the pro-unification daily's poll was to support the KMT's candidates.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Eco-friendly lanterns
The Environmental Protection Bureau of Taipei County is promoting "online sky lanterns" as an eco-friendly and safe alternative to traditional lanterns ahead of the Lantern Festival, when rice paper lanterns are traditionally lit and sent into flight. The bureau said the kerosene and paper burned when releasing a single sky lantern results in the release of about 1kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Chiang Pen-Chi (蔣本芝), section chief of the bureau's "Low-Carbon Society Development Center," said yesterday that the online sky lanterns provided by the county government have attracted over 10,000 Taiwan residents over the past several years, resulting in a 10 tonne reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. Besides being better for the environment, the online sky lanterns offer a safer alternative to the traditional lanterns, which cause several fires in Taiwan over the holiday each year.
■ TOURISM
Boat visits at five-year high
The number of tourist arrivals aboard cruise liners calling at Taiwan's international ports hit a five-year high of more than 426,000 last year, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) reported on Thursday. Last year's figure marked an increase of about 111,000 over the 2006 level, or a 35.3 percent growth year on year, the most recent statistics by the MOTC showed. Last year, Keelung Port saw the largest number of cruise liner tourist arrivals -- 272,000 or 63.8 percent of the total. The British-registered Rhapsody of the Seas was the most recent ocean liner to visit Keelung, mooring for half a day on Monday. There were more than 2,000 passengers aboard the ship, nearly 700 of whom were Chinese.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
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