EDUCATION
Millions set for scholarships
The government will allocate NT$150 million (US$5 million) in scholarship funds over a three-year period for more than 100 Taiwanese to pursue post-graduate study or research at top universities around the world, Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧) said yesterday. The program, to be run from 2013 to 2015, will be jointly funded by the Ministry of Education, the National Science Council, the Board of Science and Technology and Academia Sinica in a bid to cultivate Taiwanese intellectuals, Chiang said. The program will select schools ranked among the top 30 in the world and research fields based on the nation’s needs, he said. The scholarships will be offered to applicants after they are accepted for doctoral or postdoctoral research at the chosen universities or institutions overseas, the minister said.
GOVERNMENT
Legislators demand apology
Female Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Taiwan Solidarity Union lawmakers and women rights’ groups yesterday called on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Fai (費鴻泰) to apologize for the “filthy” comments he allegedly made against DPP Legislator Wu Yi-chen (吳宜臻) at a Procedure Committee meeting on Tuesday. Aside from demanding that the legislature’s Disciplinary Committee investigate Fai’s comments, the groups also called for the establishment of a panel on gender equality in the legislature as discriminatory comments against female lawmakers have been common among their male colleagues. Lawmakers’ frequent discrimination against women in Taiwan is ironic, DPP LegislatorYu Mei-nu (尤美女) said. Fai denied that he had made the comments and refused to apologize.
EARTHQUAKE
Temblor hits Hualien County
A magnitude 4.1 earthquake shook Hualien County at about noon yesterday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, according to the Central Weather Bureau’s Seismology Center. The temblor, which hit at 12:08pm, had a shallow epicenter at a depth of 5km beneath the Earth’s surface, the center said. The epicenter was located in Hualien County’s Shoufeng (壽豐) Township, 24.9km southwest of Hualien County Hall, the center said, adding that the strongest intensity of 5 was felt in Hualien.
LAW
Court nixes CEC decision
The Supreme Administrative Court yesterday overturned a decision by the Central Election Commission (CEC) and the administrative court rejecting a Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU)-led proposed referendum on the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement and ordered a review of the case by the commission and the Referendum Review Committee. The court said the rejection of the proposed referendum on the grounds that any proposal on important policies or seeking to change the current situation must include a negative description was not part of the regulations in subparagraph 3 of Article 31 of the Referendum Act (公民投票法). TSU Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said that he was delighted by the verdict. Executive Yuan spokesman Hu Yu-wei (胡幼偉) said the Executive Yuan respected the court’s decision, adding that Huang’s proposal would be turned over to the committee for review based on regulations in the act.
TOURISM
Liner to visit Keelung
A US-based luxury cruise line will include Keelung in its Asian itinerary in late August when one of its large liners will dock there, the operator said on Wednesday. Lin Kai-ti (林楷迪), chairman of Royal Caribbean International’s Taiwan branch, said the Voyager of the Seas — a 140,000-tonne liner that can accommodate 3,800 passengers — was transferred from the Caribbean to Asia this year. He said the ship is the largest cruise liner ever to operate in Asia. The ship was in Singapore last month and will travel to Keelung on three separate cruises from late August to September, he said. Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Wayne Liu (劉喜臨) said the bureau set up an incentive program this year to encourage operators to include Taiwanese ports on their cruise itineraries. He said the bureau would subsidize operators based on the number of travelers onboard liners that dock in Taiwan and so far five operators have submitted applications for the subsidy program.
CULTURE
Taiwanese food praised
A recent article published on the CNNGo travel news Web site contained a list titled 40 Taiwanese foods we can’t live without, topped by braised pork rice and beef noodles. The author, Hiufu Wong, describes Taiwanese food as a mash-up of the cuisines of various Chinese communities with elements of Japanese cuisine. Including many local snacks on her list, Wong said “small eats (小吃, xiao chi)” are the big thing in Taiwan, where the philosophy is eat often and eat well. “Every time you think you’ve found the best streetside bao, the most incredible stinky tofu stand or mind-blowing beef noodle soup, there’s always another one that surpasses it,” she said. The list includes oyster omelets (蚵仔煎), bubble tea, guan tsai ban (棺材板, coffin bread), slack season danzai noodles, fried/steamed meatballs (肉圓), stinky tofu (臭豆腐), mochi (麻糬, glutinous rice balls with sweet filling), steamed spring rolls and spicy hotpot.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods