■POLITICS
Officials to meet Tibetan
Officials from Taiwan’s representative office in Japan are expected to meet a Tibetan-Taiwanese activist today who was arrested by Japanese authorities on Saturday for trying to grab the Olympic torch during the Japan leg of the relay in Nagano, said Peter Tsai (蔡明耀), deputy director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Committee of Japanese Affairs. Tsai said that Japanese authorities had asked the court to detain Tashi Tsering, the 38-year-old vice chairman of the Taiwan chapter of the Tibetan Youth Congress, for 10 more days on top of his initial 48-hour holding period, during which Tsering was kept incommunicado. “The government is doing all it can to have him repatriated and has requested the Japanese authorities to ensure his rights are respected during his incarceration,” Tsai said.
■POLITICS
Lien to attend Olympics
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) has agreed to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in August at the invitation of Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong (郭金龍), the Central News Agency said. The invitation was issued during a sculpture unveiling ceremony in Beijing’s Olympic park yesterday, the agency said, adding that Lien and his wife had accepted the invitation. The sculpture was a gift from Lien to Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).
■HEALTH
Man detained over coconuts
Taipei County law enforcement and consumer rights authorities yesterday tracked down a businessman suspected of illegally disposing of 21 tonnes of coconuts imported from Thailand that were found to contain residues of a banned pesticide. The businessman, Mo Yu-huei (莫酋惠), was taken to the Criminal Investigation Bureau early yesterday to be questioned. A local cable TV news station reported that Mo refused to say who bought the tainted coconuts but said his company had sold the goods to street vendors. Authorities yesterday inspected hypermarkets around the county, including RT-Mart, Carrefour and Wellcome, but none were found to be selling the suspect coconuts. The Department of Health reported on Monday that tests on samples from a shipment of some 30,000 Rungtawan coconuts showed they contained 0.18ppm of the fungicide Carbendazim.
■POLITICS
No China meet planned
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) chairman-designate Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) denied yesterday he was planning to meet the head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) on May 25. Chiang, who returned from a four-day visit to China on Monday afternoon, said in a written statement yesterday that he had no plans to visit China again next month, as the government’s power transfer and reshuffle of the SEF would be his priority during the period. “I never planned to visit China on May 25 and I certainly will not take the occasion to meet Chen,” Chiang said. Chiang issued the statement in response to a report in the Chinese-language United Daily News, which claimed that Chiang had cancelled his meeting with Chen on Monday afternoon after receiving a telephone call from China. The story blamed the cancellation of Chiang’s China visit on president-elect Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) appointment of former Taiwan Solidarity Union legislator Lai Shin-yuan (賴辛媛) as the chairperson of the Mainland Affairs Council.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its