■ DIPLOMACY
AIT offices closed
In observance of Martin Luther King Jr Day, all offices of the American Institute in Taiwan will be closed on Monday. The offices will re-open the following day.
■ DIPLOMACY
Cambodia rebuffs Taiwan
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday it regretted the Cambodian government's continual objection to forging closer economic ties with Taiwan. Ministry spokeswoman Phoebe Yeh (葉非比) made the statement after Phnom Penh reiterated that it did not welcome any form of Taiwanese liaison office in its country. The Central News Agency reported that the Cambodian foreign ministry had issued a statement yesterday saying that, because it respected Beijing's "one China" principle, Cambodia would not allow the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) to set up a branch in the country. At press time, TAITRA had not made any official response to Phnom Penh's rejection.
■ EDUCATION
Political speech contest
Foreign Mandarin students had an opportunity to weigh in on the political situation and display their language abilities in an "If I Were President" speech contest held by Radio Taiwan International on Sunday evening. A total of 46 students from 14 countries took part in the preliminary round of the contest co-sponsored by the publicly funded radio station and National Taiwan Normal University's Mandarin Training Center. The contest was a colorful affair, with the participants using a variety of creative approaches to liven up their speeches. One of the contestants from Vietnam, Du Duc Hiep, a business management student at Tamkang University, used a traditional form of four-verse poetry to express how he would govern as Taiwan's head of state.
■ CRIME
Changes to drug laws mulled
The Ministry of Education (MOE) plans to amend laws to require teenage drug users and their parents to attend counseling classes and impose fines on them, an official said yesterday. In addition, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) is considering sending teenage drug users to juvenile court, said Wang Fu-lin (王福林), director of the MOE's military training department. The planned measures are part of the ministries' efforts to respond to the rapidly increasing numbers of teenage students using drugs in recent years, Wang told a national meeting in Kaohsiung attended by local education chiefs. Citing MOE statistics, Wang noted that the number of students who were caught using grade three drugs, including ketamine and flunitrazepam, saw a five-fold rise from 39 in 2004 to 195 last year.
■ SOCIETY
Former minister dies
Former education minister and Academia Sinica research fellow Wu Jin (吳京), who advocated the recognition of Chinese diplomas, died of cancer at noon in Tainan yesterday. The 74-year-old researcher was respected for his dedication to education reform during his term as education minister between 1996 and 1998. During his term, he sought to reform the education system because he believed it attached too much importance to students' grades. He also proposed a military training program for female college students in 1996. Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) expressed his condolences on behalf of the ministry and praised Wu's contribution to education reform.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai