SOCIETY
Poo collectors may win big
New Taipei City (新北市) will run an innovative scheme to keep its streets clean by encouraging residents to collect dog excrement for a chance to win gold. Starting in July, the city government will offer residents who collect canines’ waste the chance to enter a lucky draw, local media reported yesterday. Those taking part in the scheme will be given one lottery ticket in exchange for the dog waste they collect for a chance to enter the draw, which has a top prize of a gold ingot worth NT$60,000, it said. The scheme ran for the first time in June last year and proved a success attracting more than 20,000 participants, according to the city government. A lucky draw was conducted in November last year in which three prizes of gold ingots, each with different worth, were given away.
AGRICULTURE
Yunlin bird flu probed
All chickens at a farm in Yunlin County were culled after it was confirmed to have been hit by a highly pathogenic form of the H5N2 avian influenza virus, agricultural officials said yesterday. The farm and surrounding area were disinfected after 14,000 chickens from the farm were culled, officials from the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said. A clinical investigation and epidemiological sampling within a radius of 3km of the farm would continue, but all fowl in neighboring areas have so far been found to be healthy and no suspected avian flu cases were reported, they said. A Yunlin agricultural official said on Friday that more than 13 million chickens are currently being raised on more than 900 farms in the county. The first outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N2 bird flu was recorded on Jan. 9 at a farm in Changhua County. Since then, two other egg and poultry farms in Changhua and one each in Greater Tainan and Pingtung County have been hit by a similar virus.
CULTURE
Hakka park opens in Tongluo
The Hakka Cultural Park Miaoli was officially inaugurated in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) yesterday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Premier Sean Chen (陳冲), Hakka Affairs Council Minister Huang Yu-chen (黃玉振) and Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻). The establishment of the park makes it the second central government-run Hakka cultural park in the country. The other one is in Greater Kaohsiung. According to the council, the Hakka Cultural Park Miaoli is not merely a park, but rather, it is part of the Taiwan Hakka Culture Development Center, which displays elements of Hakka culture not only native to Taiwan, but also from around the world.
IMMIGRATION
Illegals feted to Mother’s Day
Illegal immigrants being held at a National Immigration Agency detention center in Nantou County celebrated Mother’s Day with a local saxophone ensemble yesterday. Officials at the center, who organized the concert, also presented carnations to more than 60 mothers waiting to be sent back to their native countries. The band, based in Greater Taichung, played Taiwanese music and folk songs from Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries. The detainees, including two women who are being held there with small children, said they were moved by the songs and the kindness of Taiwanese. As the final stop in Taiwan, the detention center tries to provide the detainees a good diet, a pleasant environment and entertainment to ease their anxiety before being deported, officials said.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
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