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.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not