■ Weather
Torrential rain warning
The Central Weather Bureau continued to issue warnings yesterday of possible torrential rains for the country's east, south and center. Meteorologists said that a low pressure system, which had massed near the South China Sea over the past two days, has disintegrated into scattered cloud systems, with some of them beginning to affect this country. The bureau warned that the incoming cloud systems are bringing torrential rains which may in turn trigger landslides or mudslides. Forecasters
also said that Typhoon Namtheun, which is sweeping towards Japan, will definitely not affect this country. Temperatures have been high in recent days, and they are expected to remain high over the
next several days, meteor-ologists said. Highs of 35?C are forecast for the north, while highs of 33?C and 31?C are forecast for the center and south, respectively.
■ Military
Live-fire drills on Kinmen
The Kinmen Defense Command conducted a live-fire shooting drill in a coastal area of northeastern Kinmen early yesterday morning to test the defensive capabilities of its artillery force. At around 5:30am, 15 105cm howitzers fired a series of live-ammunition rounds into the air over Kinmen's northeast coast over the course of an hour. Cha Tai-chuan (查台傳), commander-in-chief of the Kinmen Defense Command, said the live-fire drill was part of an annual exercise and had nothing to do with ongoing large-scale military exercises that China has been conducting off its southern coast on Dongshan Island. The Kinmen Defense Command dispatched a fleet of Hailung (Sea Dragon) speedboats to evacuate adjacent areas in advance of the live-fire drill. Cha discounted media reports saying that the howitzers were firing at China, saying that the guns were in fact aimed at a high angle and at short range. He said that the targets being fired at were more than 10km distant from China.
■ Society
More singles, less growth
The country's rate of population growth is slowing and the number of unmarried people as a percentage of the population is increasing, according to a report released by the Population Affairs Administration yesterday. The annual rate of population growth between 2000 and last year was 8.34 percent, 5.79 percent, 5.14 percent and 3.72 percent in each successive year, the report said. The number of unmarried females between the ages of 30 and 44 increased by 1.190 times between 2000 and last year, while the number of unmarried males increased by 1.078 times. According to the administration, factors contributing to the increase in single people include personalities and economics. Also, more people are looking for overseas brides, the report said.
■ Education
Special programs approved
The Cabinet yesterday approved several measures to help children from mixed marriages with their schooling. The Ministry of Education launched a NT$4.61 million after-class schoolwork guidance program last fall for children who have one foreign parent. The Cabinet yesterday gave the go-ahead for the ministry to earmark a total of NT$165 million to continue the program for the next four years. The Cabinet also agreed to put children from multicultural marriages on the priority list for public kindergartens or nursery schools.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift