A Cabinet meeting yesterday approved a draft law to address the needs of the country’s Hakka, who at 5 million people make up 21.73 percent of the population.
Should the bill pass the legislature, it will become the second basic law for a single ethnic group in the country following the passage of the Aboriginal Basic Law (原住民基本法) in 2005.
“The enactment of the basic law is not because Hakka want privileges, but to secure equal rights. The basic rights of other people will not be negatively influenced by the basic law,” Council for Hakka Affairs Minister Huang Yu-chen (黃玉振) told a press conference.
Huang said that enactment of the bill would facilitate the advancement of Hakka culture, rebuild their dignity and help establish a harmonious society in which people from different ethnic groups can co-exist.
Under the bill, the Executive Yuan would be required to convene meetings of officials from different government departments to coordinate policies in connection with Hakka affairs and hold national conferences on a regular basis to deliberate the policies.
It stipulates that the government should take into consideration the rights of Hakka and their development when it maps out regional development plans and makes public policies.
The government would be required to include exams on Hakka affairs in its national exams, the bill said.
Huang said that the bill would require the government to establish connections between Hakka in the country and the ethnic group around the world with the view to turning Taiwan into a world center of Hakka culture.
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
China has reserved offshore airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts that are usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Sunday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. The alerts, known as notice to air missions (NOTAMs), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert
RSS