■POLITICS
Chang tapped for defense
Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Chang Lang-jen (張良任) has been tapped to be the vice minister of national defense, the council said yesterday. Vice Chairman Liu Teh-hsun (劉德勳) said yesterday was Chang’s last day at the council and he would start his new job today. However, Liu said the public should wait for the Ministry of National Defense to make the announcement official. There has been widespread speculation that Liu would also be moving on, but he said that he knew nothing about such plans and was trying to find out himself. Chang and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) studied at Harvard together and Chang served at the council when it was established in 1991. He became Straits Exchange Foundation deputy secretary-general in 1996 before moving to Hong Kong in 2001 to head the Chung Hwa Travel Service, the nation’s representative office in the territory. Chang was appointed one of the council’s three vice chairmen when Ma took office in May.
■CULTURE
Indigenous market to open
Taipei City’s Indigenous People’s Commission said the Naruwan Indigenous People’s Market, the first market to specialize in Taiwanese indigenous products, would open tomorrow. The mall, located at the intersection of Guangzhou Street and Huanhe South Road, will open at 11am on Saturday. It will offer handicrafts, agricultural products and food and beverages, including tea from Thao farms on Alishan and dishes of the Atayal tribe such as Bamboo tube rice with betel nut flower. Indigenous artists and singers will also stage performances at the mall on Saturday and Sunday nights. The mall will be open Monday through Friday from 4pm to 10pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 10pm.
■DIPLOMACY
Wang headed back to Japan
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), who only returned from a trip to Japan two weeks ago, said yesterday that he would leave for Japan again to meet former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. “I’m going to deliver a speech at a conference on future relations between the US, Taiwan and Japan. Former prime minister Shinzo Abe will have lunch with me,” Wang told reporters at the legislature. But he said he didn’t know if he would meet again with Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Taro Aso, a possible successor to Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Wang’s last trip was to explain President Ma ‘s stance on Taipei-Tokyo ties.
■SOCIETY
Motorcyclists at higher risk
Nearly 60 percent of road fatalities in 2006 and last year were motorcyclists, statistics released on Wednesday by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Road Safety Supervisory Committee show. In 2006, 3,140 people died in traffic accidents on public roads, with 58.92 percent (1,850) of them motorcyclists. Traffic accidents took 7,573 lives last year, including 1,536 motorcyclists who accounted for 59.7 percent of fatalities. In 2005 there were 2,894 traffic fatalities, with 1,566 of the victims being motorbike riders. The committee said it would review the durability and use of motorcycle helmets on the market because 62.2 percent of the motorcyclists who died in accidents in the last three years were wearing helmets. Of the 432,557 accidents involving motorcycles between 2005 and last year, the fatality rate for people wearing helmets was 0.65 percent, compared with a fatality rate of 5.13 percent for those not wearing helmets, the committee said.
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
A magnitude 4.1 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 2:23pm today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was 5.4 kilometers northeast of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 34.9 km, according to the CWA. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was the highest in Hualien County, where it measured 2 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 1 in Yilan county, Taichung, Nantou County, Changhua County and Yunlin County, the CWA said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
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