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.
Three Taiwanese airlines have prohibited passengers from packing Bluetooth earbuds and their charger cases in checked luggage. EVA Air and Uni Air said that Bluetooth earbuds and charger cases are categorized as portable electronic devices, which should be switched off if they are placed in checked luggage based on international aviation safety regulations. They must not be in standby or sleep mode. However, as charging would continue when earbuds are placed in the charger cases, which would contravene international aviation regulations, their cases must be carried as hand luggage, they said. Tigerair Taiwan said that earbud charger cases are equipped
Foreign travelers entering Taiwan on a short layover via Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport are receiving NT$600 gift vouchers from yesterday, the Tourism Administration said, adding that it hopes the incentive would boost tourism consumption at the airport. The program, which allows travelers holding non-Taiwan passports who enter the country during a layover of up to 24 hours to claim a voucher, aims to promote attractions at the airport, the agency said in a statement on Friday. To participate, travelers must sign up on the campaign Web site, the agency said. They can then present their passport and boarding pass for their connecting international
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
WEATHER Typhoon forming: CWA A tropical depression is expected to form into a typhoon as early as today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, adding that the storm’s path remains uncertain. Before the weekend, it would move toward the Philippines, the agency said. Some time around Monday next week, it might reach a turning point, either veering north toward waters east of Taiwan or continuing westward across the Philippines, the CWA said. Meanwhile, the eye of Typhoon Kalmaegi was 1,310km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, as of 2am yesterday, it said. The storm is forecast to move through central
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