■ LEISURE
Marathon updates available
To provide better service to the participants of the 2008 ING Taipei Marathon today, the Taipei City Government is to present real-time race results to allow spectators to obtain updates via mobile devices. The Taipei City Department of Information Technology said spectators could obtain real-time results for individual runners through laptops, PDAs and cell phones. The system will also actively dispatch updates via SMS to subscribers. A total of 3,100 runners have already registered for this service. Viewers can also watch the marathon via live-streaming video at the Results Finder Web site. LCD screens at MRT Taipei City Hall Station and MRT Taipei Main Station will broadcast the event live. Twenty laptops with wireless broadband connection will be placed at the first floor lobby of City Hall to allow residents to use this new service, the department said. To access the Results Finder, visit the Web site at: http://2008ing.taipei.gov.tw/
■ ENVIRONMENT
Hsuehshan fire burns firs
A forest fire on Hsuehshan (雪山) was put out on Friday afternoon, but not before 4 hectares of firs and arrow bamboo trees burned to the ground. The fire on the 3,886m mountain in northern Taiwan was ignited on Thursday afternoon by a six-member mountain-climbing group that set a fire to alert a rescue helicopter of the exact location of an injured climber, who fractured a bone in a fall near a mountain lodge. While the injured climber, surnamed Wu, was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Chiayi for treatment, the fire quickly spread. Firefighters rushed to the scene, but were hampered by a lack of water and the mountainous terrain. They called on the Ministry of the Interior to send a helicopter to help combat the blaze. The fire was brought under control on Friday at around noon and was fully extinguished by 4:50pm.
■ POLITICS
China warns Vatican
Relations between China and the Vatican can only improve if the Holy See ditches ties with Taiwan and stops using religion to interfere in China’s domestic affairs, China’s state media quoted a top Chinese official as saying on Friday. China’s 8 million to 12 million Catholics are split between a state-sanctioned Church, and an “underground” one that rejects government control and answers only to Rome. Du Qinglin (杜青林), head of China’s United Front Work Department which deals with religious and ethnic minorities and non-Communists, said it was up to the Vatican to improve relations, China’s official Xinhua news agency said. The Vatican must also sever its ties with Taiwan, he said.
■ SOCIETY
Migrants Day celebrated
Non-immigrants and immigrants celebrated International Migrants Day — which fell on Thursday this year — with traditional dishes, music and dance from the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Myanmar in an international immigrant exposition organized by the Ministry of the Interior and the National Immigration Agency in Taipei yesterday. Recalling the country’s history, Minister of the Interior Liao Liou-yi (廖了以) said Taiwan was actually a country of migrants, “I’m the seventh generation since my ancestors migrated to Taiwan [from China] and 160 years ago my ancestors were newcomers here just like you.” Liao said the number of migrants in Taiwan — including those who came through marriage, for work or other reasons — has reached more than 900,000.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
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