■TRANSPORTATION
Charter flights for festival
A total of 16 direct cross-strait charter flights have been scheduled for the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Civil Aviation Administration said on Friday. The flights will be offered by eight carriers: China-based Xiamen Airlines (廈門航空), China Eastern Airlines (中國東方航空) and Shanghai Airlines (上海航空), as well as Taiwan’s EVA Airways (長榮航空), Uni Air (立榮航空), China Airlines (中華航空), Trans Asia Airways (復興航空) and Mandarin Airlines (華信航空). China Airlines starts its holiday service with a Taipei-Shanghai flight today. All the flights will be between Taipei and Shanghai except for two flights between Taipei and Xiamen on Sept. 19 and Sept. 21. Three flights will be offered on Thursday and one per day today, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Two flights are scheduled for Sept. 16 and Sept. 19, one each for Sept. 17 and Sept. 18, and three for Sept. 21.
■GOVERNMENT
No pricey gifts: minister
The value of gifts given to or by civil servants should not exceed NT$3,000 under normal circumstances, Central Personnel Administration Minister Chen Ching-hsiou (陳清秀) said. Chen made the statement following media reports that the government had introduced guidelines prohibiting civil servants from offering or accepting gifts worth more than NT$500. Chen said the NT$500 limit applied to gifts from people who had vested interests. In other cases, the cap on the value of gifts should be NT$3,000. Chen said the Council of Agriculture had recently planned to present fruit baskets to ministry officials, but after discussion at a Cabinet meeting, the plan was scrapped, mainly because the gifts were worth more than NT$700 each and the officials did not want to accept such pricey gifts because they have “high moral standards,” he said.
■CULTURE
Brain museum now open
A museum opened in Pingtung County yesterday dedicated to introducing the public to the mysteries of the human brain. The Brain Education Museum in Sinpi Township (新埤) offers visitors a chance to “travel” the world of the most sophisticated organ of the human body. The museum was built by the Pingtung County Government and the Calo Psychiatric Center, a hospital specializing in the treatment and rehabilitation of people suffering from psychological disorders. The museum is divided into two sections, one introducing the structure and functions of the sections of the brain and one focusing on how the brain works as a whole. The exhibition explains emotions, the senses and memory, maintaining a healthy brain, and brain diseases and disorders.
■LABOR
Rule change for foreigners
The Council of Labor Affairs said yesterday it would ease restrictions on employing foreign spouses to tap into a largely idle source of manpower. Council officials said there were 400,000 foreign spouses in the country, who are not included in an employment assistance and subsidy program for citizens. Once the restrictions are eased, foreign spouses, including Chinese, will be eligible for the same subsidies allocated for provisional jobs or vocational training. Employers will be given subsidies to encourage them to hire more foreign spouses. If they employ a foreign spouse for more than 32 hours per week for three months, they will receive a subsidy of NT$10,000 per person per month.
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all