■DIPLOMACY
US mulling Ma visit
The US government has not come to a decision on whether to approve president-elect Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) request to visit the US before his May 20 inauguration, the head of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday. AIT Director Stephen Young made the remark when asked about the issue during a call on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄). Young said he had no further information for the media. During a meeting with Young in Taipei on Monday, Ma raised the possibility of visiting the US before his inauguration. A US Department of State official in charge of East Asian affairs confirmed on Tuesday that Washington had received Ma's request.
■ HEALTH
Slaughter ban to take effect
A ban on poultry slaughter in traditional markets will take effect on Tuesday as originally scheduled, National Science Council Chairman Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said yesterday. "Despite protests by poultry vendors who fear that the ban will affect their livelihood, the policy will go into effect on April 1, and all chicken, geese and ducks should then be slaughtered at licensed abattoirs," Chen said. But as some complementary measures have yet to be completed, the government will postpone enforcement, originally scheduled for Oct. 1, for three to six months, he said. Chen, who concurrently serves as convener of a Cabinet bird flu epidemic prevention task force, said that preparatory work, such as setting up electric slaughter houses, disinfecting facilities at the abattoirs and launching a food safety publicity drive, is yet to be completed.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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