DIPLOMACY
Japan’s Mori plants cherries
Former Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori, who arrived in Taiwan on Thursday, will attend a cherry blossom planting today in recognition of the strong ties between the two countries. More than 500 people, half of whom are Japanese, plan to join Mori in planting seeds at the Yoichi Hatta Memorial Park in Greater Tainan, said the event’s organizer, a sports association from Japan. Mori said the memorial park was built in May last year in honor of Hatta, a Japanese engineer who made major contributions to Taiwan’s hydraulic development in the early 1900s by building the Chianan Canal (嘉南大圳) and the Wushantou Reservoir (烏山頭水庫). More than a century after Hatta’s work, Taiwanese returned the favor by donating generously in the wake of last year’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Mori said. “On behalf of Japanese, I want to express my thanks to Taiwan,” Mori said.
GOVERNMENT
Ma’s nominees confirmed
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) nominees for vice president of the Examination Yuan Wu Jin-lin (伍錦霖) and for membership of the civil service testing branch Nancy Chao (趙麗雲) and Hwang Giin-tarng (黃錦堂) passed their confirmation yesterday, each by a vote of 66 to 6. The Democratic Progressive Party, which holds 40 seats in the 113-seat legislature, declined to cast ballots because the vote “was merely a formality.” The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) and the People First Party (PFP), each of which has three seats, said they all voted against the nominations. The TSU said that the party opposed the nominees because they did not support shrinking the council of the Examination Yuan, which currently has 19 members, while the PFP said it was not satisfied with their academic qualifications.
TOURISM
FIT to expand this month
Taiwan has decided to expand its Free Independent Traveler (FIT) program for Chinese nationals with effect from late this month, to allow visits by individual tourists from other Chinese cities besides Beijing, Shanghai and Xiamen, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Starting on April 28, Chinese tourists from Tianjin, Chongqing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Chengdu will be allowed to make independent trips to Taiwan, which means they will no longer be required to join a tour group, the agency said. As part of Taiwan’s broader efforts to increase tourism from China, the daily quota of independent Chinese visitors will also be doubled to 1,000 with effect from April 28, the immigration agency said.
ROAD SAFETY
Ministry mulls Yeoh invite
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications said it might invite Hollywood actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) to help raise awareness of road safety. The proposal came following the visit of Yeoh’s fiance, former Ferrari CEO Jean Todt, to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications on Thursday. Hsieh Chao-i (謝潮儀), executive secretary of the Road Traffic Safety Committee, met Todt on behalf of the ministry. He said Todt came as the president of motorsport’s governing body, the FIA, which now helps promote the UN’s 10-year campaign to enhance global road safety. The UN had announced a “Decade of Action for Road Safety,” beginning last year, which aimed to save 5 million lives by 2020. Yeoh also serves as the global ambassador for the “Make Roads Safe” campaign, launched by the Commission for Global Road Safety under the FIA.
ENVIRONMENT
Endangered bird tracked
An endangered black-faced spoonbill was released into the wild at a wetlands in Greater Tainan yesterday after being fitted with a satellite transmitter to track its migration route for wildlife conservation purposes. “It is the first time that we fitted a black-faced spoonbill with that type of advanced equipment for migration tracking,” said Leu Teng-yuan (呂登元), director of the Taijiang National Park Administration in Greater Tainan. The two-year-old bird, dubbed T46, was caught late on Thursday at the city’s Sihcao Wildlife Conservation Area, which is one of the nation’s largest wetlands and forms part of the national park, Lu said. Earlier this year, three black-faced spoonbills were fitted with radio transmitters to track their movements in Taiwan, Lu said. Saying black-faced spoonbills have begun flying back to their breeding grounds in the north, Lu said the satellite transmitter would facilitate mapping of T46’s migratory paths.
TOURISM
Resorts seeking volunteers
Foreign students are being invited to join a volunteer program at mountain resorts this summer as part of an effort to promote tourism among young adults, the organizers said yesterday. The Council of Agriculture, in collaboration with the world’s largest student-run organization, AIESEC, is aiming to recruit 16 foreign and 32 local volunteers to work at mountain resorts during the peak tourist months of July and August. They will serve as tour guides and activity organizers, and will help with environmental protection and maintenance, said Weng Li-hsin (翁麗芯), a section chief at the Forestry Bureau’s recreation division. The volunteers will be asked to write blogs about their experience so that more people can learn about Taiwan’s beauty, she said. More information can be found at: www.recreation.forest.gov.tw.
SOCIETY
Marriages rise 1.3 percent
The number of local marriages increased by 1.3 percent in the first quarter of this year from the same period last year, edging up to 39,448, the latest government statistics showed. Of that number, 5,407 were “cross-cultural” marriages, which represented 13.7 percent of the total and a 1.6 percent annual increase in that category, the data showed. On average, one out of every 7.3 marriages in the first quarter was cross--cultural, the Directorate-General of Budget Accounting and Statistics report said. In the majority of such marriages, the spouses of Taiwanese were from China (63.3 percent), followed by Southeast Asian countries (22.4 percent). The number of divorces declined 0.9 percent year-on-year in the first quarter to 13,047. About 24.8 percent of divorces were among cross-cultural couples.
POLAM KOPITIAM CASE: Of the two people still in hospital, one has undergone a liver transplant and is improving, while the other is being evaluated for a liver transplant A fourth person has died from bongkrek acid poisoning linked to the Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday, as two other people remain seriously ill in hospital. The first death was reported on March 24. The man had been 39 years old and had eaten at the restaurant on March 22. As more cases of suspected food poisoning involving people who had eaten at the restaurant were reported by hospitals on March 26, the ministry and the Taipei Department of Health launched an investigation. The Food and
The long-awaited Taichung aquarium is expected to open next year after more than a decade of development. The building in Cingshui District (清水) is to feature a large ocean aquarium on the first floor, coral display area on the second floor, a jellyfish tank and Dajia River (大甲溪) basin display on the third, a river estuary display and restaurant on the fourth, and a cafe and garden on the fifth. As it is near Wuci Fishing Port (梧棲漁港), many are expecting the opening of the aquarium to bring more tourism to the harbor. Speaking at the city council on Monday, Taichung City Councilor
A fourth person has died in a food poisoning outbreak linked to the Xinyi (信義) branch of Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in Taipei, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said on Monday. It was the second fatality in three days, after another was announced on Saturday. The 40-year-old woman experienced multiple organ failure in the early hours on Monday, and the family decided not to undergo emergency resuscitation, Wang said. She initially showed signs of improvement after seeking medical treatment for nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, but her condition worsened due to an infection, he said. Two others who
Taiwanese should be mindful when visiting China, as Beijing in July is likely to tighten the implementation of policies on national security following the introduction of two regulations, a researcher said on Saturday. China on Friday unveiled the regulations governing the law enforcement and judicial activities of national security agencies. They would help crack down on “illegal” and “criminal” activities that Beijing considers to be endangering national security, according to reports by China’s state media. The definition of what constitutes a national security threat in China is vague, Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said. The two procedural regulations are to provide Chinese