■ Education
More foreigners to be hired
Head of the British Council, Taipei Office Gordon Slaven signed a service contract
for recruiting foreign English teachers yesterday with Lau Ching-jen (劉慶仁), head of the Cultural Division of Taipei Representative Office in the UK, who represented the Bureau of International and Educational Relations. The UK is now the second country to recruit qualified English teachers, following Canada. The British government will recruit native speakers with qualification in teaching before Oct. 31 to fill 70 posts. Qualified candidates are expected to start teaching
next February. Bureau officials said the
new teachers would probably teach in remote areas. Those schools which can provide accommodation for the teachers will be given first consideration.
■ Military Affairs
Ethnic balance changes
Retired soldiers from the Taiwanese and Hakka ethnic groups account for more than half of the total of some 530,000 veterans, officials from the Veterans Affairs Commission (VAC) said yesterday. The officials made the remarks at a seminar
on ethnic integration held
to discuss issues concerning cross-strait marriages and veterans going to China for settlement. In the past, the mainlanders who retreated to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in 1949 made up the bulk of veterans,
but commission Chairman
Kao Hua-chu (高華柱) said yesterday that as of the end of last year, there were more than 282,000 veterans from the Taiwanese and Hakka ethnic groups, surpassing one half of the total of around 530,000. There were also around 7,500 veterans from Aboriginal groups.
■ Politics
DPP will court Lee
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will invite
former president Lee Teng-
hui (李登輝) to stump for its candidates in December's legislative elections, DPP secretary-general Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) said yesterday. Chang said
the DPP and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) are partners and that both parties had cooperated in many areas in the past. He said it was inevitable that there would
be competition between the parties during the year-end elections, and noted that a portion of supporters for the two parties overlapped. He added that the DPP would "properly handle its relations with the TSU." Chang said that it was undeniable that Lee, the spiritual leader of
the TSU, was a trump card
for that party in its election campaign, but that the DPP would still invite him to stump for DPP candidates.
■ Trade
Outlets to open in Japan
The nation has its sights on expanding its international presence in farm and aquacultural produce, with the Council of Agriculture paying particular attention
to the Japanese market,
a council spokesman said yesterday. The council
plans to open "fine Taiwan agricultural produce centers" in Tokyo and Osaka to introduce the produce in Japan, he said. In line with a set of promotional guidelines and packages for overseas sales, the council has recently targeted star fruit, papaya and guava for overseas markets. In addition, moth orchids, oolong tea, mangoes and bream have been labeled as flagship products for export, he said. Taiwan's agricultural trade hit US$6.217 billion
in the first half of the
year. Inbound shipments outstripped outbound shipments US$4.52 billion to US$1.67 billion, leaving the country with a deficit of US$2.82 billion, up by 29 percent over the previous year's level.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
HORROR STORIES: One victim recounted not realizing they had been stabbed and seeing people bleeding, while another recalled breaking down in tears after fleeing A man on Friday died after he tried to fight the knife-wielding suspect who went on a stabbing spree near two of Taipei’s busiest metro stations, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. The 57-year-old man, identified by his family name, Yu (余), encountered the suspect at Exit M7 of Taipei Main Station and immediately tried to stop him, but was fatally wounded and later died, Chiang said, calling the incident “heartbreaking.” Yu’s family would receive at least NT$5 million (US$158,584) in compensation through the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp’s (TRTC) insurance coverage, he said after convening an emergency security response meeting yesterday morning. National
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
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