■ Society
Cleaning week' to start
A "national cleaning week" will kick off on Tuesday in line with people's habit of carrying out a thorough household cleaning prior to the Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb. 9 this year. During the Tuesday to Sunday cleaning week, the public is urged to take any discarded furniture, mattresses or other large-sized waste to government-designated locations where the items will be collected free of charge. Cities and counties around the nation will also hold street-sweeping activities tomorrow. Environmental Protection Administration chief Chang Juu-en (張祖恩) has urged people clean out any breeding grounds for mosquitos or other disease agents and maintain a clean living environment. He also urged people to make a habit of not littering.
■ Bureacracy
Paperwork to be bilingual
The Ministry of the Interior said yesterday that from Feb. 1, the public will be able to apply for household registration in English. The application for English-language household registry will take six days to process, at a cost of NT$150 (US$4.7) per copy. Applicants will need to submit their passports or documents bearing their English names, as well as their IDs and seals.
■ Crime
Two men jailed in Vietnam
A court in Vietnam's southern business capital has jailed two men from Taiwan for smuggling mobile phones and accessories from their homeland to Vietnam, a court said yesterday. The People's Court of Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday handed 55-year-old Tsai Fu-jung a five-year sentence, and Chang Heng-sang, 46, a two-year jail term, a court official said. According to state media, the two, together with three Vietnamese accomplices, had smuggled 400 mobile phones and accessories from Taiwan to Vietnam between February 2002 and their arrest in May 2003.
■ Music
Choir to hold concerts
The Taipei Philharmonic Chamber Choir is planning to start a series of concerts entitled "Image Taiwan" in Israel and Turkey beginning Wednesday. The choir, conducted by Dirk DuHei, will perform in Jerusalem and Istanbul, featuring works by contemporary Taiwanese and foreign composers. Its program includes songs by Sarah Hopkins, Javier Busto and Chien Nan-chang (錢南章). The choir performed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the major sponsor of its tour to Israel and Turkey, yesterday evening. The choir was founded in 1972 and, through the efforts of its conductors, has established an extensive repertoire and a reputation as one of the most prestigious choruses in Taiwan. Members of the chorus are music lovers from all walks of life.
■ Academia
Map system developed
Two newly developed digital systems on China and Taiwan's historical and cultural maps may be valuable references for historical and cultural research, an Academia Sinica researcher said yesterday. The Academia Sinica's Institute of History and Philology has just completed the Time/Space Infrastructure of the Chinese Civilization and the Taiwan Historical and Cultural Map System based on the knowledge and technology provided by the cutting-edge Geographic Information System (GIS), said Fan Yi-chun (范毅軍), a deputy researcher with the institute.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) is to launch a new program to encourage international students to stay in Taiwan and explore job opportunities here after graduation, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said on Friday. The government would provide full scholarships for international students to further their studies for two years in Taiwan, so those who want to pursue a master’s degree can consider applying for the program, he said. The fields included are science, technology, engineering, mathematics, semiconductors and finance, Yeh added. The program, called “Intense 2+2,” would also assist international students who completed the two years of further studies in
Former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) departed for Europe on Friday night, with planned stops in Lithuania and Denmark. Tsai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday night, but did not speak to reporters before departing. Tsai wrote on social media later that the purpose of the trip was to reaffirm the commitment of Taiwanese to working with democratic allies to promote regional security and stability, upholding freedom and democracy, and defending their homeland. She also expressed hope that through joint efforts, Taiwan and Europe would continue to be partners building up economic resilience on the global stage. The former president was to first
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
The Taipei District Court sentenced babysitters Liu Tsai-hsuan (劉彩萱) and Liu Jou-lin (劉若琳) to life and 18 years in prison respectively today for causing the death of a one-year-old boy in December 2023. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said that Liu Tsai-hsuan was entrusted with the care of a one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), in August 2023 by the Child Welfare League Foundation. From Sept. 1 to Dec. 23 that year, she and her sister Liu Jou-lin allegedly committed acts of abuse against the boy, who was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries on Dec. 24, 2023, but did not
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