■ Education
Reading festival continues
The Chengpin Reading Festival is in progress around the nation, with a large variety of activities underway, organizers said yesterday. Chengpin is a major bookstore chain viewed by some people in Taiwan as a "cultural arena." The topic of the annual festival is "a new vision of the world" and to present the topic, the bookstore has organized a series of activities, including concerts, dancing, film screenings and seminars, in addition to book exhibitions. The event will run until Aug. 21. The bookstore was slated to sponsor an outdoor concert in Taipei City today.
■ Diplomacy
Hsieh plans October tour
Prime Minister Frank Hsieh said (謝長廷) he plans to embark on a diplomatic tour in October and may make transit stops in Japan and the US. In the face of China's diplomatic embargo, Hsieh said he plans to visit one or more of Taiwan's diplomatic allies in October. However, he said, the itinerary has not yet been fleshed out. Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials said planning is already underway, with Paraguay the most likely destination. Paraguay is Taiwan's only diplomatic ally in South America. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is scheduled to visit Nicaragua in September to attend a biennial summit meeting with the heads of state of the ROC's Central American allies. Chen may also visit several allies in the Caribbean.
■ Diplomacy
Costa Rican leader to visit
President Abel Pacheco from Costa Rica, one of Taiwan's few diplomatic allies, is scheduled to visit the island next week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. Pacheco, accompanied by his wife, will lead a 14-member delegation on a six-day visit to Taiwan for the inauguration of the Democratic Pacific Union (DPU) founded by Taiwan's Vice-President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), the ministry said in a statement. Pacheco is expected to deliver a speech at the union's opening ceremony on Aug. 14 and ink a joint communique with his Taiwanese counterpart, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), it said. The DPU is an international NGO grouping some of Taiwan's diplomatic allies in Latin America and the Pacific with representatives from the US, Japan and Australia. It is committed to promoting democracy, peace and prosperity.
■ Education
Whiz kids challenge US
Four mental arithmetic youngsters from Taiwan will visit five cities in the US later this month to demonstrate how they can calculate even faster than an electronic calculator. Tseng Chun-chao (曾春兆), president of the Association of Chinese Childrens' Mental Arithmetic Development, said on Thursday that at the invitation of the National Education Association, he will lead the team of four youngsters aged between nine and 17 to visit Dallas, New York, Boston, Atlanta and Los Angeles from Aug. 19 to Aug. 28. The four youngsters will demonstrate their abilities in the hope of helping education officials in the US promote arithmetic. To impress their American spectators, Tseng said they welcome any American citizens between the ages of 9 and 100, using calculators, to challenge Liu Yu-ming (劉育名), a nine-year-old student. If they can beat him, Tseng promised NT$50,000 or a free 10-day trip to Taiwan. Liu, a second grader in an elementary school in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan, is able to complete 23 calculations in less than three seconds.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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