■ Cross-strait ties
New Party chief off to China
Opposition New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) said yesterday that he will lead a delegation of Taipei City Council caucus members to China today. Yok said at a news conference that the visit is aimed at strengthening youth exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and studying municipal development in several large cities in China. In addition to visiting some city establishments in Shanghai, Nanjing and Beijing, the delegation will communicate with Chinese authorities on issues related to a young-leader camp which the New Party plans to organize there. Yok said that while jointly fielding candidates for next year's presidential election, the KMT and PFP should try to convince the public that they are more capable than the DPP of promoting cross-strait peace by working out clear, concrete and workable policies on China.
■ Foreign affairs
German delegation to visit
German parliamentarian Georg Fahrenschon will arrive in Taipei today, heading a nine-member delegation on a weeklong visit to Taiwan. Other members of the delegation include another German Bundestag member, Stephan Mayer, and Alexander Radwan, a member of the European Parliament. During their stay, the delegation will call on high-ranking government officials and visit several economic and cultural establishments, including the National Palace Museum. Meanwhile, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, the Vatican's education minister, will also arrive in Taiwan the same day for a six-day visit aimed at better understanding Taiwan's educational, social and economic development.
■ Literature
Medical history examined
An illustrated book documenting Taiwan's medical history during Japanese colonial rule from 1895 through 1945 was published yesterday. Yang Chien-cheng (楊建成), a senior researcher at Academia Sinica, spent 20 years chronicling the development of medical services during the colonial era. According to the book, the Japanese colonial government set up only elementary Western medicine educational institutions in Taiwan while keeping advanced medical training facilities in Japan. Aspiring Taiwan youths had to travel to Japan to study Western medicine during those years. Official tallies show that 2,500 Taiwan youths, including at least 200 women, completed basic training to become qualified medical practitioners during the colonial era.
■ Foreign affairs
Chadian delegation to visit
Guelengdouksia Ouaidou Nassour, president of the Chadian Parliament, will head a six-member delegation which will arrive in Taiwan today for a six-day visit aimed at promoting exchanges between the parliaments of the two countries. Nassour, who was elected president of the Chadian Parliament last year, has long been a good friend of Taiwan. He visited Taiwan in 1998 in his capacity as prime minister. During his visit, Nassour will call on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平). He will also visit several economic and cultural establishments, including the Taipei World Trade Center, the Taitung Agricultural Improvement Station and the National Palace Museum. After Taiwan and Chad resumed diplomatic relations in 1997, the two countries immediately began cooperating in the fields of medicine, agriculture, electrical engineering and infrastructure.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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