■ 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.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
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