Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday that the performance of Taiwan’s baseball team at the World Baseball Classic was “unacceptable” and called on Sports Affairs Council Minister Tai Hsia-ling (戴遐齡) to come up with a proposal to boost baseball by the end of this month.
Taiwan’s baseball team returned home on Sunday after being eliminated from the competition following losses to South Korea and China.
The team’s loss to China marked the second defeat to the country in a year.
Executive Yuan spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said that Liu, who watched the game against China on Saturday afternoon, was stunned by the result.
“[Liu] told me he was very angry when watching the game and could not accept the result,” Su said.
Su said Liu’s first task yesterday morning was to arrange a provisional meeting with Tai, where Liu requested that the SAC present a plan to improve the nation’s physical environment by the end of this month.
Liu was worried not only about baseball, but also basketball and pool, following recent events that had grabbed his attention.
The Super Basketball League couldn’t get any cable TV to broadcast its games this year and a recent SBL competition drew a crowd of only 50 people.
Taiwan’s pool champion Wu Chia-ching (吳珈慶), meanwhile, has decided to become a citizen of Singapore, Su said.
Wu’s family recently applied for citizenship in Singapore after Wu objected to lack of funding and retirement provisions to support his career in Taiwan.
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