■ Politics
Embassy planned in Nauru
The Republic of China's (ROC) embassy in Nauru is expected to be running by the end of the month, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday. The president made the remark while receiving Nauruan parliamentary speaker Valdon Dowiyogo at the Presidential Office yesterday morning. Taiwan and Nauru first established diplomatic relations in 1980. After Nauru switched its allegiance to China in July 2002, it re-established diplomatic relations with Taiwan in May 2005. Chen, who visited the Micronesian South Pacific island nation in September last year, was the first Taiwanese president to visit Nauru, which became independent in 1968.
■ Defense
Recruit standards change
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday made public the latest standards for the physical condition of recruits. Reporters immediately questioned whether the new standards were too lax. Recruits will be required to run 3km in 19 minutes. After six months of military service, the time limit will be 15 minutes. "I have to say that this standard for physical training is designed to help recruits gradually get used to tough military training," said Rear Admiral Wu Chi-fang (吳季方), spokesman for the ministry. "Every country in the world does the same thing to train their recruits. It will not be a problem."
■ Society
Weather kills mountaineer
The leader of a trio of mountaineers attempting to scale Mount Nanhu (南湖大山) and the Central Range Point has died after temperatures in the area suddenly dropped, said fire brigade officials who responded to an emergency call for help yesterday. The officials said they received emergency calls saying that the team's leader, Lai Shan-chieh (賴杉杰), had died while two companions -- Ting Ching-chun (丁清俊) and Chou Mei-chu (周美珠) -- were suffering from hypothermia. Ting and Chou are temporarily quartered at a tourist lodge in Nanhu while awaiting medical assistance. A seven-member rescue team has set off from the brigade's detachment near Lishan (梨山), but it will take them three to four days to reach the mountain lodge, officials said. The brigade requested a helicopter for the rescue mission, but bad weather conditions barred the option.
■ Justice
Task force members affirmed
Members of the country's top investigation task force have been approved by the Prosecutors' Personnel Review Committee under the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), an official of the Supreme Prosecutor's Office said yesterday. The 10 prosecutors were selected by State Public Prosecutor-General Chen Tsung-ming (陳聰明) and submitted to the ministry for approval earlier yesterday. Chen Yun-nan (陳雲南), who is currently an MOJ counselor, will be the task force head. The other nine members include another MOJ counselor and eight prosecutors from different high court and district prosecutors' offices. The spokesman said they would work directly under the leadership of the state public prosecutor-general and deal with crimes committed by top government officials or their relatives. The task force will start operating in April after the 10 members are officially appointed by the MOJ, the spokesman said.
■ Health
Taiwanese can't sleep
Over one-quarter of Taiwanese suffer from problems related to sleeping, including insomnia, with more women than men experiencing problems, a study published yesterday showed. The Taiwan Society of Sleep Medicine's survey of 4,011 people over 15 years of age found that 25.5 percent of respondents, or 4.8 million, had sleep-related problems. Increasing numbers of Taiwanese are troubled by a lack of sleep, it showed, with 24.8 percent reporting some manner of sleep disorder and 11.5 percent suffering chronic insomnia. The figures indicated that more than one in every 10 people regularly had serious difficulties sleeping. Thirty percent of women reported troubles falling asleep. More than half of women aged 50 to 59 reported menopause-related sleep problems, the survey found. Hsu Shih-chieh (許世杰) of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Linkou (林口) said that people who had trouble sleeping for more than one month might be suffering from chronic insomnia and should seek assistance from a physician.
■ Politics
Ma vows to ease restriction
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said he would ease a key restriction on investment in China if elected president next year. "Generally speaking, the 40 percent ceiling has to go," Ma said of a rule subjecting Taiwanese companies' investment in China to that share of their net worth. Ma said there would be some exceptions to this liberalization. Speaking at a conference in Taipei organized by Merrill Lynch & Co, he said limits on some technology investments would need to be maintained for national security reasons, although they would be eased.
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
The Taipei City Government yesterday confirmed that it has negotiated a royalties of NT$12.2 billion (US$380 million) with artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia Corp, with the earliest possible signing date set for Wednesday next week. The city has been preparing for Nvidia to build its Taiwan headquarters in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park since last year, and the project has now entered its final stage before the contract is signed. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said the city government has completed the royalty price negotiations and would now push through the remaining procedures to sign the contract before
Taipei Zoo welcomes the Lunar New Year this year through its efforts to protect an endangered species of horse native to central Asia that was once fully extinct outside of captivity. The festival ushering in the Year of the Horse would draw attention to the zoo’s four specimens of Przewalski’s horse, named for a Russian geographer who first encountered them in the late 19th century across the steppes of western Mongolia. “Visitors will look at the horses and think that since this is the Year of the Horse: ‘I want to get to know horses,’” said zookeeper Chen Yun-chieh, who has been
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said the name of the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania was agreed by both sides, after Lithuania’s prime minister described a 2021 decision to let Taiwan set up a de facto embassy in Vilnius as a “mistake.” Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene, who entered office in September last year, told the Baltic News Service on Tuesday that Lithuania had begun taking “small first steps” aimed at restoring ties with Beijing. The ministry in a statement said that Taiwan and Lithuania are important partners that share the values of freedom and democracy. Since the establishment of the
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