■POLITICS
New ministers sworn in
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday presided over a ceremony formally installing 10 new Cabinet members, including Vice Premier Sean Chen (陳冲). Other Cabinet members sworn in at the Presidential Office event were Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫), Examination Yuan Secretary-General Hwang Yea-baang (黃雅榜), Council for Economic Planning and Development Chairperson Christina Liu (劉憶如), Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Chen Yu-chang (陳裕璋), Prosecutor-General Huang Shyh-ming (黃世銘), National Security Council deputy secretaries-general Ke Kuang-yeh (葛光越) and Liu Chih-kung (劉志攻), Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Shou-huang (陳守煌) and National Security Bureau Deputy Director-General Chang Kuang-yuan (張光遠).
■POLITICS
Chen denies run in Tainan
Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) office yesterday dismissed a report that he planned to run for a legislative seat in a Tainan City by-election if the incumbent, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator William Lai (賴清德), wins the Greater Tainan mayoral race in the year-end special municipal elections. Chen has been in custody at the Tucheng Detention Center since December 2008. Last week he was given a 20-year prison sentence and a fine of NT$170 million (US$5.27 million) by the Taiwan High Court. The KMT, meanwhile, dismissed allegation that it spread the rumors about Chen.
■CULTURE
Film festival entries rise
This year’s biennial Taiwan International Documentary Festival (TIDF) has received more than twice the number of entries compared with the last festival in 2008, organizers said yesterday. The festival is aimed at promoting dialogue between international and local documentary filmmakers, as well as introducing the “Taiwanese spirit” to the world. Festival director Angelika Wang said 1,468 films from 93 countries were submitted this year, compared with 618 films in 2008. Wang said the increase showed there was global recognition of Taiwan’s efforts to stimulate exchanges of perspectives. The festival would also help broaden the horizons of local audiences, she said. “A nation without documentaries is like a family without photo albums,” Wang said. The TIDF is the second-largest documentary festival in Asia, showing about 120 works and attracting about 60,000 people. This year’s festival will be held from Oct. 22 to Oct. 31 in Taichung.
■EDUCATION
Idiom dictionary upgraded
The Ministry of Education said yesterday that it had added an English function to its online idiom dictionary (dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw) and it would expand the content for English users in the near future. The Dictionary of Chinese Idioms, which was launched online five years ago, now allows users to search for idioms by entering key words in either Chinese or English. “Although the English search function is limited at the moment, we are planning to provide English translations for all the Chinese idioms in the dictionary,” said Chen I-mei, a member of the ministry’s National Language Committee. The ministry has been testing that function and hopes it will be ready for public use later this year, she said. The online dictionary contains about 25,000 Chinese idioms and the ministry plans to add more gradually, she said.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
Snow fell on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山) yesterday morning as a continental cold air mass sent temperatures below freezing on Taiwan’s tallest peak, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Snowflakes were seen on Yushan’s north peak from 6:28am to 6:38am, but they did not fully cover the ground and no accumulation was recorded, the CWA said. As of 7:42am, the lowest temperature recorded across Taiwan was minus-5.5°C at Yushan’s Fengkou observatory and minus-4.7°C at the Yushan observatory, CWA data showed. On Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, a low of 1.3°C was recorded at 6:39pm, when ice pellets fell at Songsyue Lodge (松雪樓), a
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