■ International Aid
Group urges Bam donations
World Vision Taiwan is urging the public to donate money for the emergency relief program in Iran. The city of Bam, in the south of the country, was devastated by a major earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale on Friday. The death toll is now estimated to be around 40,000. World Vision is set to send relief teams and emergency supplies to Iran tomorrow. The organization estimates the first stage of its relief plan will cost around US$250,000. Hank Du (杜明翰), director of World Vision Taiwan, said Iran had suffered several earthquakes before and there was a lack of general resources in the country. Du said victims of the earthquake would need food, clothing and shelter to make it through the cold winter. Those who wish to donate money to the relief program can call 02-2585-6300 or wire money to World Vision Taiwan's post office account 15752467. They should specify the money is for the earthquake relief program.
■ Filial piety
Chen honors father
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) recalled his own father while honoring seven models of "dutiful sons" in a ceremony in Tainan County. Chen said his father helped his wife, Wu Shu-chen (吳淑珍), run for a legislative seat in 1985 when Chen was at the nadir of his political career. At the time, Chen had just been defeated in the Tainan County commissioner's election and had been sentenced to jail for eight months for libel, and Wu was paralyzed from the waist down in a traffic accident. Wu succeeded in the election, but Chen's father was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and died four months after the election. Chen said his father didn't live long enough to see his son elected president. The president lauded the establishment of the prize to honor the models of filial piety, saying that filial piety can improve harmony in society. He said the founder of the prize, business tycoon Wu Hsiou-chi (吳修齊), is himself a well-known dutiful son.
■ Public transit
Special tickets to be released
The Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC, 台北捷運公司) will release commemorative tickets for next year at 9am tomorrow on the company's Web site, www.trtc.com.tw, and the MRT gift shop in Taipei Station. The tickets are in memory of pop singer Theresa Teng (鄧麗君). The package includes four tickets with Teng's stage photos, a CD single and a commemorative album, and costs NT$840. The company said it has limited the number of sets to 2,000. Another set celebrating the coming of the year of the monkey, which includes two tickets and three golden envelopes, costs NT$150.
■ Education
NTU program gets top grade
National Taiwan University's (NTU) executive master's business administration (EMBA) program leads the pack among its counterparts in Taiwan, according to a survey released yesterday. The survey, conducted by the monthly magazine Cheers, showed most respondents mentioned NTU's EMBA program as their first choice. The NTU program topped the list in the magazine's survey for the second year in a row. National Chiao Tung University finished second, followed by National Chengchi University, National Sun Yat-sen University and National Tsinghua University. The three leading considerations of respondents in choosing EMBA programs were access to the school, the quality of the faculty and the fame of the school. The survey was based on responses from executives from the top 1,000 companies in Taiwan, with 241 valid responses being collected.
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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