■ RELIGION
MOI releases temple tally
A total of 14,841 temples and churches were officially registered with the government as of the end of last year, statistics compiled by the Ministry of the Interior showed. Some 78 percent of the country’s officially registered 11,651 temples, or 9,137 temples, were Taoist, while close to 20 percent were Buddhist, statistics showed. In terms of cities and counties, Tainan County had the highest number of religious buildings, with 1,234 temples and churches, followed by Kaohsiung County with 1,135 and Pingtung County with 1,067. As of the end of last year, there were 3,190 churches across Taiwan, with 2,468 Christian churches and 688 Catholic churches, the same tallies showed. Taipei City had the most churches with 428.
■POLITICS
TSU slams cross-strait policy
Most of the public believes that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government has relaxed cross-strait policies too rapidly since taking office, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said yesterday. Huang said that when the TSU agreed to let one of its members, former legislator Lai Shin-yuan, join the KMT government as the chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council, the TSU based the decision on the conditions that cross-strait policy would maintain Taiwan’s national dignity, benefit the average person and highlight Taiwanese identity, Huang said during a meeting with party members in Changhua. But when the quasi-official bodies representing Taiwan and China held talks earlier this month on starting direct charter flights, China dominated the negotiating agenda, Huang said.
■WEATHER
COA plans mudslide drill
The Council of Agriculture (COA) will simulate a mudslide in Nantou County on Tuesday to test the preparedness of rescue and relief teams to cope with possible mudslides during the typhoon season, COA Deputy Minister Hu Sing-hwa (胡興華) said yesterday. Taiwan’s typhoon season typically runs from July to November. Hu said the drill, which will take place in Nantou County’s Shuili Township (水里), will feature a scenario in which a mudslide occurs following torrential rains brought by a typhoon. The drill will test the responses of the central government and local governments, including the speed with which they set up command centers, evacuate residents, provide medical care and deliver necessities to victims. The drill is one of 42 scheduled by the COA this year.
■ECONOMY
More babies needed: CEPD
The government should help reduce the cost of raising and educating children to boost falling birth rates, the Council for Economic Planning and Development said yesterday. The council said in a statement that the government should to create an environment in which couples who wish to have children can take parental leave without worrying about increasing the burden on their companies. Without such concerns, couples would be more willing to have children, it said. The government should also launch measures to help couples reduce daycare costs and educational expenses, it said. The council attributed the nation’s dropping birth rate to the increasing number of people who are getting married at an older age and a decreasing number of married women. It forecast that the number of newborns this year would decline to 204,000 from 270,000 in 1998 and that the average birth rate would fall to 1.1 children.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
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