■ENVIRONMENT
Biodiversity classes offered
People who wish to get involved in the conservation wildlife are encouraged to join classes focusing on Taiwan’s endemic species. To encourage public participation, the Council of Agriculture’s Endemic Species Research Institute will host 13 “biodiversity investigators training classes” from next Monday through Sept. 11 in Nantou County. The classes will cover 10 different categories of life, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, butterflies, snails and plants, and will include both technical knowledge as well as field studies. Those who complete the course will have the opportunity to help work on Taiwan’s endemic species database, the institute said. More information is available on www.tesri.gov.tw/ngis2009/ or call 02-2731-0290, ext. 25.
■DIPLOMACY
MOFA rebuts report
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebutted a report in the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) that former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀) was planning to come to Taiwan for a personal visit in November. Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) said the ministry had made no such arrangement and that he had heard nothing of such a plan until he saw it in the paper. The Liberty Times report said an invitation was made by a figure in Taiwan’s cultural arena who is close to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Lee served as Singapore’s prime minister from 1959 to 1990. He visited in 1994 under the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government and again in 2004 when invited by former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
■TRANSPORTATION
Taipower fines KRTC
Kaohsiung Rapid Transit Corp (KRTC) was fined NT$860,000 by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) for excessive use of electricity on May 20 during a concert ahead of the World Games. KRTC public relations manager Marian Chiang (江惠頌) said on Sunday the company had received a bill from Taipower in May that included a penalty. The concert drew about 30,000 passengers on the Kaohsiung MRT, leading the company to increase train services as well as personnel to facilitate services. The company now fears a similar penalty could appear in the next bill, as the opening of the World Games on Thursday drew even more passengers than during the concert. “We hope [Taipower] will not cause us to lose our profit,” Chiang said.
■ASTRONOMY
‘Apollo 11’ exhibit opens
An exhibition to mark the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing opened yesterday in Taipei, featuring posters, film screenings, books and lectures to showcase one of the most important moments in human history. The exhibition, called New Era of Discovery, was organized by the American Institute in Taiwan in collaboration with the National Central Library and will run though Aug. 2 to showcase NASA’s manned space missions. Launched on July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission was the first manned mission to land on the moon, making mission commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin Jr the first humans to walk on the moon while command module pilot Michael Collins orbited above. Former US astronaut Marsha Ivins made a speech at the ceremony yesterday titled “My Journey with NASA Missions,” in which she shared her adventures and those of other astronauts. A veteran of five space flights from 1990 to 2001, Ivins has logged more than 1,318 hours in space.
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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