FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Wu to attend Esper talks
Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) is to hold an online meeting with former US secretary of defense Mark Esper on Wednesday next week to discuss the growing threat China poses in the Indo-Pacific region, the McCain Institute for International Leadership has said. The meeting, scheduled at midnight, would be the sixth of a series of public talks between Esper and a policy expert on issues related to US national security, said the Washington-based think tank, which is organizing the event. A main focus of the series is Indo-Pacific security partnerships and challenges such as increasing international authoritarianism and the spread of disinformation. Esper served as secretary of defense under former US president Donald Trump from July 2019 to November 2020. He is a distinguished fellow at the McCain institute.
EDUCATION
Additional students can enter
Taiwan is on March 1 to begin allowing the entry of international language students who do not receive Huayu Enrichment Scholarships, Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) said on Tuesday, adding that about 5,000 students without scholarships are expected to arrive by June 30. Schools that offer Chinese-language courses of six months or longer can submit entry permit applications for their prospective students, he said. The start date was chosen to avoid the Lunar New Year holiday to ensure enough quarantine hotel capacity, Pan said. International language students without an Alien Residency Certificate (ARC) have not been allowed to enter Taiwan since it imposed restrictions on foreign travelers in March 2020, amid the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Taiwan in August last year began to grant entry to international students who are granted ministry scholarships, but do not have an ARC. Separately, the ministry on Monday said that about 1,000 foreign teachers hired by schools for the ongoing school year ending June 30 can apply for a special visa to enter the nation. Students and teachers would have to quarantine for 14 days upon entering Taiwan, observe another seven days of self-health management and frequently get tested for COVID-19 during the 21-day period, the ministry said.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Taiwanese to stay in Ukraine
Twenty-eight Taiwanese have chosen to remain in Ukraine despite the government urging them to leave, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday. Ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said that 34 Taiwanese residents of Ukraine have since Saturday been contacted. Six have left the country amid Western governments warning of an imminent Russian invasion, while nine have relocated to the western city of Lviv, close to the border with Poland, Ou said. Although the government respects the decision of those who wish to stay, the ministry, through its representative office in Moscow, is providing them with the latest updates, Ou said. Taiwan is among 31 countries that asked their citizens to leave Ukraine, the ministry said. In the event of an emergency, Taiwanese in Ukraine can call +7-969-008-6111 to seek assistance from the Moscow office, it said. They can also contact the Taiwan Trade Center in Kiev, which is run by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, at +380-44-537-0982, it added.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
RSS