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Taiwan Quick Take

■ Education
AIT says student visas rising
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) announced yesterday that student visas issued to Taiwanese in the first 10 months of this year have surpassed the figure for all of last year. AIT has issued 12,654 students visas to Taiwanese so far this year, compared to 11,277 for all of last year, officials said. They said that the acceptance rate for student visa appli-cations has continued to rise over the past several years. Over 97 percent of applications have resulted in a student visa. This com-pares with issuance rates of approximately 90 percent in 2002 and 91 percent last year. "We welcome and want to encourage international students to come to the US to study," AIT Director Douglas Paal said. "Although we have implemented new measures to make our borders and the traveling public more secure, we have not changed the basic criteria for visa eligibility to visit or study in the United States," he
said.

■ Religion
Sex banned during festival
Fengyuan will ban love-making for three days next month during a Taoist festival, the organizing temple announced yester-day. The Chi An Chien Chiao (Pray for Peace) festival, held very 20 years, will be held from Dec. 8 to 10. All residents have been asked by the temple's management committee to eat vegetarian food and refrain from having sex during the festival to show respect for the temple's god mother. "We called a meeting for repre-sentatives from restaurants, hotels and brothels and asked them to follow the rules during the festival. They all agreed," Cheng Ping-hsi, deputy director of the committee, told Chinese Television (CTV). Restaurant owners agreed to either serve only vegetarian food during the festival or close for the three days. Brothel and hotel owners agreed to suspend sex trade for three days, he said.

■ Society
Quality of life ranks high
Taiwan ranks 21st among 111 countries in terms of quality of living environ-ment, according to a recent survey carried in a publica-tion by The Economist. Taiwan scored 7.26 out of a possible 10 in the survey in The World in 2005. Ireland topped the list with a score of 8.33, followed by Switzerland, Norway, Luxemburg and Sweden. Australia, Iceland, Italy, Denmark and Spain rounded out the top 10. The US and Canada ranked 13th and 14th, respectively. China placed 60th, while Hong Kong was ranked 18th.

■ Defense
Keen on anti-terrorism
Taiwan will not absent itself from international counterterrorist actions and efforts, Minister of the Interior Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) said in a speech in Hawaii this week, sources from the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. Su attended the 2004 Asia-Pacific Homeland Security Summit and Exposition in Honolulu from Sunday through Wednesday and gave a speech on measures taken against global terror-ism. He said Taiwan had established a national counter-terrorism action task force in early 2002 in accordance with a resolu-tion reached by the UN Security Council in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror-ist attacks. Su urged the US to include Taiwan in a global counter-terrorism system and expressed Taiwan's eagerness to join the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). Su is scheduled to return to Taipei tomorrow.

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