A Taipei City councilor yesterday accused Taipei Zoo officials of misappropriating funds designated for “animal adoption,” urging the Taipei City Government to look into the zoo’s expenses.
The animal adoption fund was established in 2002 to accept donations from the public to provide better care for animals in the zoo. Donations to the fund reached NT$6.6 million (US$200,000) in 2007 and NT$3.9 million last year. Donations in the first four months of this year jumped to NT$12 million amid the panda fever.
Individuals, including children under 12 years old, have contributed more than NT$2 million to the fund since 2007.
INSPECTION TOURS
However, more than 40 percent of the funds were used by zoo officials and staffers for foreign inspection tours and research projects, New Party Taipei City Councilor Lee Ching-yuan (李慶元) told a press conference.
The research projects undertaken by zoo staffers, including deputy director Yang Chien-ren (楊健仁) and Taipei Zoo spokesman Jason Chin (金仕謙), cost up to NT$4.4 million, but the research papers presented were less than 10 pages.
“The fund, which doesn’t need approval from the city council, has clearly not been used for animal adoption, but to raise zoo staff members,” Lee said.
Lee cited as an example a research project by Yang on Formosan black bears that cost the zoo NT$850,000 and resulted in a two-page research paper.
Chin wrote two papers on the conservation of pangolin in 2007 and last year. The zoo budgeted NT$710,000 for the two papers, each of which was only five pages long.
Lee condemned the zoo for squandering the donations and asked Taipei City’s Department of Government Ethics to look into the fund’s expenditure.
‘LEGITIMATE’
Yang yesterday said the fund had been used for “legitimate purposes.”
The zoo sent staffers on inspection tours to other countries and encouraged them to present research projects to raise the zoo’s international competitiveness, he said.
Chin acknowledged that some of the research projects, including his two papers, were not perfect, but added that both the inspection tours and the research projects were related to animal protection and care.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
PROXIMITY: Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location, the Executive Yuan official said Taiwan plans to boost cooperation with the Czech Republic in semiconductor development due to Prague’s pivotal role in the European IC industry, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said. With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) building a wafer fab in the German city of Dresden, a Germany-Czech Republic-Poland “silicon triangle” is forming, Kung said in a media interview on the weekend after returning from a visit to Prague. “Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location,” he said. “Taiwan and Prague have already launched direct flights and it is