■ FOOD
Meat found in vegetarian food
The Investigation Bureau recently found that some processed foods advertised as vegetarian contained meat and said it would refer producers who knowingly added meat to their products for prosecution on fraud charges. Pu Chang-en (蒲長恩), a technician at the bureau’s Department of Forensic Science, said yesterday that among samples collected from 31 vegetarian food vendors in Taipei City and County for safety checks, food taken from 17 vendors contained meat. An investigation targeting the producers of the processed food was launched to determine whether meat was deliberately added to the soybean-based products to enrich their texture and flavor. Fu said it was possible that vegetarian food showing small traces of meat was contaminated by poorly cleaned work tables or cooking equipment in factories where meat products are also processed. Producers who have not deliberately defrauded consumers would not be subject to prosecution, Fu said.
■ NATURE
Liao roots for Yushan
Minister of the Interior Liao Liou-yi (廖了以) told a rally organized by the National Park Association of Taiwan in Taipei yesterday that everyone — regardless of their nationality — should vote for Yushan (玉山) to help it become one of the new seven wonders of nature. At 3,952m, Yushan is the highest mountain in Taiwan. After a nomination process in which 500,000 people from 224 countries voted, Yushan became one of the 77 candidate sites competing to become one of the 21 finalists. For the past 14 weeks, Yushan has been No. 1 in the mountains category. Voting will end on July 7, whereupon a panel of judges will choose the new seven wonders of nature among the 21 finalists.
■ SOCIETY
Taipei seeks makeovers
In its bid to make itself more attractive, Taipei City will offer more generous incentives to building owners — especially high-rise buildings — who want to give the structures a facelift. Hoping to improve the city’s appearance ahead of the 2010 Taipei International Flora Expo, the city government recently increased the subsidy it provides for renovating an old building’s exterior to 75 percent of the total cost, from 33 percent. The Taipei International Flora Expo, which will be held from Nov. 6 next year, through April 24, 2011, at four venues in Taipei is aimed at showcasing Taiwan’s technical strength in the horticulture industry, its ability to organize major events and its capacity to generate economic activity. Some 6 million people from Taiwan and abroad are expected to attend. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said yesterday the city had subsidized 33 percent of the cost of renovating olds building since 2006. To date, 30 projects benefiting from the incentive program have been completed, he said.
■ SOCIETY
Teens hooked in TV, Web
The nation’s teenagers remain addicted to TV and the Internet on weekends, a survey showed yesterday. The poll conducted by the King Car Education Foundation on 2,418 teenagers in April showed that 96.33 percent of respondents usually watched TV on the weekend, with 36.54 percent spending between two and four hours in front of the tube. More than 95 percent of children said they surfed the Internet on the weekend, with the majority spending a maximum of two hours online. Almost 15 percent said they stayed online for a minimum of six hours during the weekend, the survey found.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
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