A class studying cross-strait policies that is almost half-filled with politicians is planning a visit to China and has an itinerary that includes visits to the headquarters of Chinese government departments handling Taiwan affairs, the organizers said.
The cross-strait policy class is organized by the Graduate Institute of Development Studies at National Chengchi University and the Taipei Forum, a cross-party think tank. Its students include eight lawmakers and two deputy ministers.
After concluding its curriculum last week, the class plans to visit China in April, the organizers said, adding that four of the lawmakers — Apollo Chen (陳學聖) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Pasuya Yao (姚文智), Lin Tai-hua (林岱樺) and Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) of the Democratic Progressive Party — have said they want to take part.
Tung Chen-yuan (童振源), chairman of the Graduate Institute of Development Studies, said they are now planning the itinerary, which they hope will include visits to the Chinese State Council’s Development Research Center, the Taiwan Affairs Office and government departments in charge of business affairs, and monitoring the securities and banking industries.
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
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