SOCIETY
Match-making days proposed
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) has proposed “match-making” holidays for government employees in a bid to boost the nation’s falling marriage and birth rates, his office said yesterday. Lin called for “creative measures” to marry off the high number of single civil servants, such as granting them up to two days off a year to join match-making activities, he said in a statement. A record low of 117,099 Taiwanese couples tied the knot last year, down 24.4 percent from the previous year, according to the Ministry of the Interior. The nation’s birth rate is also among the world’s lowest. Only 191,310 babies were born last year, with the average birth rate falling to 1.03 for each woman, well below the replacement rate of 2.1 births.
CRIME
Placenta smugglers arrested
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said on Thursday that it had arrested two people suspected of smuggling 1,700 doses of sheep placenta into Taiwan. The total market value of the haul was around NT$8 million (US$242,000), according to CGA official Chao Chi-tien (趙吉田). One of the suspects, surnamed Chiu (邱), was arrested while attempting to deliver 700 doses to a man surnamed Yeh (葉). Both men were arrested at the scene, Chao said. Another 1,000 doses were seized at the cargo terminal at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after the arrest, Chao added. “The profits are handsome,” Chao said, adding that sheep placenta is believed to have anti-aging effects and can be sold in beauty clinics for up to NT$6,000 per dose, while the cost of buying it in South Korea and smuggling it into Taiwan is less than NT$200 per dose.
EDUCATION
Cursive writing to be taught
Minister of Education Wu Ching-ji (吳清基) yesterday pledged to enhance the teaching of English cursive writing to local students in response to a legislator’s complaint about the lack of cursive writing teaching in schools. During a question-and-answer session with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Justin Chou (周守訓), Wu promised that he would urge the ministry’s task force responsible for amending curriculum guidelines to review the nation’s policy on teaching English writing. Chou voiced the concerns after he found that some top local high school students could not read English cursive handwriting. The nation’s junior high school curriculum guidelines do not require that students know how to write in cursive.
EDUCATION
Japanese school donates
An elementary School in Pingtung County recently received a donation of NT$110,000 from a Japanese school as a restoration fund. Representatives of Kobe Takatsuka Senior High School in Japan visited Linbian Elementary School on Thursday to make the donation during a graduation trip to Taiwan. One of the teachers said the school’s second-grade teachers and students raised the money through school and neighborhood events after learning that some areas of Taiwan were damaged badly by Typhoon Morakot in August last year. The school contacted the Pingtung County Government, which suggested the donation should go to Linbian Elementary School, which was flooded to a depth of 2m during the typhoon. School principal Liu Wan-te (劉萬得) said the donation will be used to help the students, many of whose parents became unemployed after the typhoon and approximately 200 students who cannot afford their lunch and tuition fees.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
A magnitude 5.3 earthquake struck Kaohsiung at 1pm today, the Central Weather Administration said. The epicenter was in Jiasian District (甲仙), 72.1km north-northeast of Kaohsiung City Hall, at a depth of 7.8km, agency data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in Kaohsiung and Tainan, where it measured a 4 on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale. It also measured a 3 in parts of Chiayi City, as well as Pingtung, Yunlin and Hualien counties, data showed.
Nearly 5 million people have signed up to receive the government’s NT$10,000 (US$322) universal cash handout since registration opened on Wednesday last week, with deposits expected to begin tomorrow, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. After a staggered sign-up last week — based on the final digit of the applicant’s national ID or Alien Resident Certificate number — online registration is open to all eligible Taiwanese nationals, foreign permanent residents and spouses of Taiwanese nationals. Banks are expected to start issuing deposits from 6pm today, the ministry said. Those who completed registration by yesterday are expected to receive their NT$10,000 tomorrow, National Treasury
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