The ongoing "Challenge 2008" six-year national development plan has created 67,000 jobs in its first year, the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday.
CEPD officials delivered a report at a meeting presided over by Premier Yu Shyi-kun, reviewing the performance of the plan after its first year.
The officials estimated that a total of 700,000 jobs can be created over six years and that between 2003 and 2007, the average growth in gross domestic product could be increased from the present 4.8 percent to 5 percent if the government expands its public investment.
Yu said that government agencies have reached 93 percent of the plan's intended targets for the first year. He said that the 10 priority investment projects under the "Challenge 2008" plan will establish a pragmatic and comprehensive assessment system.
Yu said the plan needed to be reviewed annually, adding that the progress in the Ministry of Education's proposals to double the number of people who exercise regularly, improve the learning environment for retired service members and upgrade the quality of life for people, was behind schedule.
He said he hoped the Ministry of Education would review the reasons for its lateness and that it would overcome any difficulties in meeting the goals.
Stressing that "it is the unshirkable responsibility of the government" to upgrade the quality of life for the people, Yu said that "as long as the government moves along the right direction, it will be able to build the momentum for the nation to move upward."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching