Arguing that proposed changes to the Public Welfare Lottery will threaten their right to work, handicapped lottery ticket vendors yesterday called on the government not to reduce lottery draws to once a week from the current two.
"Public fever over the lottery in its early stages is understandable," said Chen Kun-tsai (陳坤財), representative of a group representing handicapped vendors. "The Ministry of Finance should just let the lottery fever cool down naturally rather than changing its policy."
Chen was referring to a proposal aimed at dissipating public fervor about the lottery that was submitted to the finance ministry by the Legislative Yuan's Finance Committee last week. The proposal asks for the number of drawings to be reduce to one a week.
"Rather than reducing the frequency of lottery draws and putting our jobs in jeopardy, the government should work on ways to achieve the original purpose of the lottery-public welfare -- and enable us to benefit," Chen said at a press conference yesterday. Legislators Lee Ming-hsien (李明憲) and Chien Chao-tung (簡肇棟) of the DPP and Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) of the KMT called the press conference to address the concerns of the handicapped vendors.
Chen said that by changing lottery policy, the government risked harming the lottery's credibility and may dampen the public's desire to buy lottery tickets.
"This would result in the smothering of our employment opportunities and defeat one of the objectives of the Public Welfare Lottery, which is to benefit the handicapped vendors financially from the profits from ticket sales."
During the press conference, Tseng Kou-lieh (
"We will take into consideration input from all relevant departments and parties on this issue," Tseng said.
"For now, there will still be two drawings a week."
Meanwhile, the alliance also urged the media to give more coverage to what it called "positive aspects of the lottery rather than negative aspects.
"By focusing a disproportional amount of coverage on the negative sides [of the lottery] and leaving out many of the heart-warming acts and stories, the media is conveying the false impression to the public that the lottery brings only greed and suicides and nothing good to society," Chen said.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
RSS