■ Foreign affairs
Aid sent to Philippines
Taiwan said yesterday it will offer US$300,000 in relief aid to the Philippines, where a powerful typhoon has left more than 1,000 people dead or missing. With the aid, the Taiwanese government hopes to contribute to the Philippines' rehabilitation and reconstruction needs, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Typhoon Durian hit Taiwan's southern neighbor on Nov. 30 and unleashed massive quantities of rocks and other volcanic debris from the slopes of the Mayon volcano, sending walls of mud and boulders onto helpless villages.
■ Politics
No Cabinet reshuffle: Cho
Presidential Office Deputy Secretary-General Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has no intention of reshuffling the Cabinet. "The president thinks that stability, including a continuation in policy and personnel matters, is what the country ought to pursue now in the aftermath of the elections," Cho said in response to a question posed by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) at a meeting of the legislature's Budgets and Final Accounts Committee. Cho said that Chen had not mentioned any Cabinet reshuffle nor was it an issue that had been discussed in the Presidential Office.
■ Politics
DPP primary set for May
The Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP's) presidential primary has been tentatively set for next May, party Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. However, a final decision on the primary's timetable and details will be made by the Central Executive Committee after soliciting opinions from party leaders and all sectors of society, Lin said. The secretary-general added that the question of whether the DPP primaries for next year's legislative polls and the 2008 presidential elections should be held simultaneously, as some members have suggested, was still up in the air. He said that producing a DPP presidential candidate early would not necessarily prevent the party's "heavyweights" from competing. Besides, he said, if a DPP presidential candidate were to be named too early, the candidate could become the target of smear campaigns and mudslinging by the opposition, adding that such a development would also be detrimental to the DPP administration's operations.
■ Society
Animals still suffering
People's attitudes toward animals has changed over time, especially in the last 10 years, but Taiwan still faces barriers that impede the practice of animal protection, academics said in an international forum yesterday. "Animal protection is a policy that cannot be delayed," said Chen Shei-saint (陳學聖), chairman of Taiwan's Animal Protection Association (APA) at the opening ceremony of the 2006 International Companion Animal Welfare Forum. The two-day forum, co-organized by the APA, the Life Conservationist Association and the Department of Veterinary Medicine at National Taiwan University, is taking place in Taipei with academics from 11 countries meeting in a "dialogue between Taiwan and the World." In a keynote speech, David Fraser, a Canadian professor who also works for the Office Internationale des Epizooties (OIE, World Organization for Animal Health), offered a global perspective on animal welfare. It is amazing how quickly people's opinion toward animals could change in 30 years, Fraser said, adding that the animal protection movement is looking for a more global reach in the 21st century.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
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