The Council of Agriculture (COA) was censured yesterday by the government watchdog Control Yuan for failing to report in time on pesticide residues found in fruits and vegetables.

Independent labs found pesticides on 43 of 58 types of supermarket produce, according to a Greenpeace report released yesterday. Of these 43, eleven contained illegal pesticides.

Video footage shows that entertainer Makiyo joined her Japanese friend in assaulting a taxi driver, local TV news reports alleged yesterday.

The auction of portions of the 85 Building in Kaohsiung City and a land parcel in the region again ended in failure yesterday, as the sole bidder made offers that were lower than the properties' base prices.

The Taipei-based General Association of Chinese Culture launched a website that incorporates a database on cross-strait language use yesterday, the same day a corresponding website and a dictionary of common cross-strait Chinese terms were publicized in Beijing.

The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB, 刑事警察局) on Tuesday joined forced with local police stations to bust a fraud ring and nabbed 22 suspects who allegedly passed themselves off as prosecutors to swindle money from victims, according to a press release by the CIB.

The Ministry of Interior (MOI) yesterday said that two military personnel were punished for taking photographs with actor Ethan Ruan (阮經天) who is currently undergoing alternative service training at a central military base in Taichung.

How much does it cost for a person to declare his/her love at the top of the world, in addition to substantial courage? For once there might be an extract answer — less then NT$310 per second for 5 minutes and 18 seconds.

The National Communications Commission (NCC, 通傳會) yesterday approved Chunghwa Telecom's (中華電信) price cut for long-distance calls from pay phones. As early as March 1, all long-distance pay phone calls will be charged at NT$1 per minute.

All 16 agreements signed between Taiwan and China since 2008 can be seen as part of a broadly defined cross-strait peace agreement, President Ma Ying-jeou said yesterday.