Six out of 26 Taiwanese applicants have received an Erasmus Mundus scholarship for doctoral degrees this year provided by the EU, an acceptance rate of 23.1 percent, exceeding every country in Asia and the eighth-highest in the world, according to the European Economic and Trade Office. That acceptance rate is well above the global average of 6 percent.
Among the recipients was Chang Chuan-fen (張娟芬), a renowned author and an active advocate of the abolition of the death penalty, who studied Erasmus Mundus master degree courses from 2006 until 2008.
Speaking yesterday at a ceremony held to confer scholarship certificates to recipients, Chang said she was thankful for the chance to hear many different points of views and to make friends around the world while studying in Europe.
Because of its historical background, Taiwan has been a society where people are deeply influenced by the US and Japan, but are less familiar with Europe, which made her choose Europe as her study destination, Chang said.
Chang recently published two books on the case of Cheng Hsing-tse (鄭性澤), who was sentenced to death after being convicted of the murder of a police officer, though there was no hard evidence supporting the conviction and Cheng insists that the confession he made during police interrogation was the product of torture.
A total of 11 Taiwanese applicants were awarded the fully-funded scholarships this year, including five granted a place on the program’s master course.
The other seven wait-listed candidates for the scholarship received an equivalent grant from the Ministry of Education to study in Europe.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its