SOCIETY
Match-making days proposed
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) has proposed “match-making” holidays for government employees in a bid to boost the nation’s falling marriage and birth rates, his office said yesterday. Lin called for “creative measures” to marry off the high number of single civil servants, such as granting them up to two days off a year to join match-making activities, he said in a statement. A record low of 117,099 Taiwanese couples tied the knot last year, down 24.4 percent from the previous year, according to the Ministry of the Interior. The nation’s birth rate is also among the world’s lowest. Only 191,310 babies were born last year, with the average birth rate falling to 1.03 for each woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 births.
CRIME
Placenta smugglers arrested
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said on Thursday that it had arrested two people suspected of smuggling 1,700 doses of sheep placenta into Taiwan. The total market value of the haul was around NT$8 million (US$242,000), according to CGA official Chao Chi-tien (趙吉田). One of the suspects, surnamed Chiu (邱), was arrested while attempting to deliver 700 doses to a man surnamed Yeh (葉). Both men were arrested at the scene, Chao said. Another 1,000 doses were seized at the cargo terminal at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after the arrest, Chao added. “The profits are handsome,” Chao said, adding that sheep placenta is believed to have anti-aging effects and can be sold in beauty clinics for up to NT$6,000 per dose, while the cost of buying it in South Korea and smuggling it into Taiwan is less than NT$200 per dose.
EDUCATION
Cursive writing to be taught
Minister of Education Wu Ching-ji (吳清基) yesterday pledged to enhance the teaching of English cursive writing to local students in response to a legislator’s complaint about the lack of cursive writing teaching in schools. During a question-and-answer session with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Justin Chou (周守訓), Wu promised that he would urge the ministry’s task force responsible for amending curriculum guidelines to review the nation’s policy on teaching English writing. Chou voiced the concerns after he found that some top local high school students could not read English cursive handwriting. The nation’s junior high school curriculum guidelines do not require that students know how to write in cursive.
EDUCATION
Japanese school donates
An elementary School in Pingtung County recently received a donation of NT$110,000 from a Japanese school as a restoration fund. Representatives of Kobe Takatsuka Senior High School in Japan visited Linbian Elementary School on Thursday to make the donation during a graduation trip to Taiwan. One of the teachers said the school’s second-grade teachers and students raised the money through school and neighborhood events after learning that some areas of Taiwan were damaged badly by Typhoon Morakot in August last year. The school contacted the Pingtung County Government, which suggested the donation should go to Linbian Elementary School, which was flooded to a depth of 2m during the typhoon. School principal Liu Wan-te (劉萬得) said the donation will be used to help the students, many of whose parents became unemployed after the typhoon and approximately 200 students who cannot afford their lunch and tuition fees.
STAY AWAY: An official said people should avoid disturbing snakes, as most do not actively attack humans, but would react defensively if threatened Taitung County authorities yesterday urged the public to stay vigilant and avoid disturbing snakes in the wild, following five reported snakebite cases in the county so far this year. Taitung County Fire Department secretary Lin Chien-cheng (林建誠) said two of the cases were in Donghe Township (東河) and involved the Taiwan habus, one person was bit by a Chinese pit viper near the South Link Railway and the remaining two were caused by unidentified snakes. He advised residents near fields to be cautious of snakes hiding in shady indoor areas, especially when entering or leaving their homes at night. In case of a
A tropical disturbance off the southeastern coast of the Philippines might become the first typhoon of the western Pacific typhoon season, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The system lacks a visible center and how it would develop is only likely to become clear on Sunday or Monday, the CWA said, adding that it was not yet possible to forecast the potential typhoon's effect on Taiwan. The American Meteorological Society defines a tropical disturbance as a system made up of showers and thunderstorms that lasts for at least 24 hours and does not have closed wind circulation.
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
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