■Education
Macau students take exams
More than 1,000 Macau high school graduates have registered to take this year's joint entrance examination in order to receive higher education in Taiwan. A Taiwan educator said 983 of the students took the exam in Macau on Saturday and yesterday. Many Macau high-school graduates have received higher education in Taiwan since 1951. The number of Macau students who registered to take Taiwan's university entrance examinations increased from 809 in 1999 to 951 last year and 1,013 this year. A student who took the exam yesterday said many Macau students want to study in Taiwan, partly because many Macau employers prefer those job seekers who have received an education in Taiwan.
■ United States
Lobby groups protest China
More than 500 Taiwanese-Americans staged a joint demonstration yesterday in front of the Chinese Consulate General in New York and the Chinese Consulate General in Los Angeles to protest against China's obstruction of Taiwan's bid to join the World Health Organization. The demonstration was jointly sponsored by the US branches of the DPP, the Youth Corps of DPP in North America, Taiwanese Medical Doctors' Association in North America, the Taiwanese Association in New York and New Jersey, the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) in New York, and other Taiwanese-American organizations in the US.The demonstrators chanted such slogans as "Shame on China," and "China is a Liar." They also waved placards, protesting China's opposition to Taiwan's participation in WHO. Organizers of the demonstrations said they hope people in the world will understand that China's opposition is unreasonable.
■ Relief
Charity bids to help Ethiopia
World Vision Taiwan (WVT) launched a fund-raising campaign yesterday to help children in African countries that have been stricken with famine. Several African countries, such as Ethiopia, Lesotho and Swaziland, are suffering serious famine which is posing a great threat to over 40 million people, a WVT spokesman said. Quoting the results of a recent survey conducted by WVT on the nutrition state of children in Ethiopia, which has been hit by its most serious drought in 20 years, the spokesman said that the malnutrition rate among children under five years old in southern Ethiopian areas continues to rise. The public is also welcome to make inquiries via the WVT's website at www.worldvision.org.tw, email pr@worldvision.org.tw, or call the famine hot line (02)2585-6300, the spokesman said.
■ Diplomacy
Chen reschedules trip
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will reschedule his planned Latin American visit to four diplomatic allies in November now that the SARS epidemic has slowed down, Chinese-language media reported yesterday. Chen had originally planned to visit Costa Rica, Belize, Haiti and Dominican Republic between May 29 and June 11, with a stopover in New York on his way to Latin America and another transit stop in Alaska on his way back. But because of the SARS outbreak, which turned serious in late April, he decided to postpone his visit. Foreign Ministry spokesman Richard Shih (石瑞琦) confirmed that the ministry has been working to prepare for Chen's visit, but declined to say when he will start his trip. Chen last visited five Central American allies, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay and Honduras in May 2001.
Agencies
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS