Taiwan's Chen, wife sentenced to life
Former Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian was convicted Friday on corruption and money laundering charges, and was sentenced to life in prison, according to officials at Taipei City Court.

Taiwan premier quits over typhoon response
Taiwan's premier resigned over criticism of the government's response to Typhoon Morakot, which slammed into the island last month.

Taiwan's former first lady sentenced
A court in Taiwan has sentenced the island's former first lady to a year in prison for lying to prosecutors in her husband's corruption case.

China cancels events over Dalai Lama
China -- showing its displeasure with the Dalai Lama's visit to Taiwan this week -- has canceled upcoming trips to the island by top state officials, state-run media reported.

In Taiwan, Dalai Lama disputes China's claims
The Dalai Lama -- on a visit to Taiwan that includes prayers for recent typhoon victims -- has rebutted China's claims that he is there for political reasons.

Dalai Lama arrives in Taiwan
The Dalai Lama arrived in Taiwan on Sunday on a visit that will include prayers for victims of Typhoon Morakot, but which has raised the ire of neighboring China.

Dalai Lama to arrive in Taiwan on Sunday
The Dalai Lama will arrive in Taiwan on Sunday for a trip that will include praying for victims of Typhoon Morakot, his spokesman told CNN.

Typhoon death toll in Taiwan climbs higher
The number of people killed by a typhoon that slammed into Taiwan and China earlier this month continues to rise, Taiwan announced Thursday.

China opposes Dalai Lama's Taiwan visit
China "resolutely opposes" a planned trip by the Dalai Lama to Taiwan, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Thursday, hours after Taiwan's president announced the visit.

Taiwan death toll 'higher than feared'
A typhoon that struck Taiwan and China earlier this month killed more people in Taiwan than previous estimates, the government announced.

President Ma says sorry again for typhoon response
Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou apologized again today for the slow response to Typhoon Morakot and said he plans sweeping changes to the country's rescue agencies and may punish some government officials.

Hundreds stranded in typhoon-hit Taiwan
Hundreds of people await evacuation in Taiwan more than a week after Typhoon Morakot pummeled the island, a government Web site said Monday.

Taiwan's leader takes blame for typhoon response
Taiwan's leader Ma Ying-jeou said Sunday he accepts responsibility for the government's slow response after Typhoon Morakot slammed into the island killing at more than 120 people and unleashing floods, mudslides and misery.

Taiwanese call for souls to come home
Grieving Taiwanese families held roadside memorial services Saturday to honor those killed by Typhoon Morakot.

1,300 still trapped after Taiwan typhoon
More than 1,300 people are still trapped in remote mountainous villages in southern Taiwan, victims of treacherous mudslides and floods from Typhoon Morakot, the country's semiofficial Central News Agency said Saturday.

Taiwan village buried in mud
A survivor from the typhoon that devastated Taiwan told how she and her grandson were surrounded by rising water in their mountain village.

Countries pledge aid to Taiwan
More countries pledged aid to Taiwan on Friday, days after Typhoon Morakot battered the island and left dozens of villages deluged with floodwaters, killing 116 people.

Typhoon survivors find sanctuary in school
In the foothills of the Central Mountain chain in southern Taiwan, a rescue helicopter lowers itself onto an athletic field in the town of Nei Pu.

Deadly mudslides strike across East Asia
The wrath of Typhoon Morakot has affected nearly 9 million people across four coastal China provinces and killed dozens in Taiwan, officials said Tuesday.

Report: Hundreds survive typhoon in Taiwan
Military rescue teams in Taiwan found hundreds of villagers stranded by Typhoon Morakot along the island's mountainous regions, media reported.

Deadly typhoon causes Taiwan's worst flooding in decades
A mudslide triggered by torrential rains may have buried up to 800 villagers in southern Taiwan, media reports said Monday, as the country counted the cost of its worst flooding in decades.

Typhoon Morakot lashes Taiwan
Typhoon Morakot dumped heavy rain on Taiwan early Saturday and threatened to further soak the recently drought-stricken island.

Earthquake strikes Taiwan region
A 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the Taiwan region early Tuesday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

China's economy, Taiwan top Wen's address
China's National People's Congress convened Thursday in Beijing, with Premier Wen Jiabao saying China's economy eyed an 8 percent growth target and that the nation was ready to end "a state of hostility" with Taiwan.

Taiwan citizens get vouchers to go shopping
More than 90 percent of eligible Taiwan residents took up the government's offer of 3600 New Taiwan Dollars (USD $108) to go shopping, government officials said Monday.

China sends goodwill pandas to Taiwan
Two giant pandas arrived in Taiwan Tuesday after leaving China's Sichuan province for their new home, in a sign of improving ties between the cross-strait neighbors.

China, Taiwan reopen regular links
Regularly scheduled commercial flights, shipping, and mail between Taiwan and China resumed Monday for the first time since the 1949 revolution that brought the Communist Party to power on the Chinese mainland.

Court orders detention of Taiwan ex-president
A judge ordered the former president of Taiwan detained Wednesday on corruption charges, just hours after he was taken to a hospital after he accused police of pushing and rough-handling him before he appeared in court in Taipei, according to state-run media.

Taiwanese leader meets Chinese envoy
Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou met Thursday with the most senior Chinese official to visit the island in nearly 60 years, state-run media reported.

China envoy arrives in Taiwan on rare visit
The most senior Chinese official to visit Taiwan in nearly 60 years arrived on the island Monday for economic talks -- a sign of improving relations.

Taiwan President Faces Growing Opposition
As the market meltdown hits Taiwan's shores, president Ma Ying-jeou faces slipping approval ratings and hundreds of thousands taking to the streets in protest. Will his controversial policy of mending ties with China survive?

China nixes U.S. meetings over Taiwan arms deal
China has canceled or postponed several military exchanges with the U.S. in reaction to last week's announcement that the U.S. is selling weapons to Taiwan, a Defense Department spokesman said Monday.

U.S. to sell $6.4 billion in weapons to Taiwan
In a move bound to anger China, the United States intends to sell $6.4 billion in arms to Taiwan, the State Department said Friday.

Taiwan: Melamine Found in Nestle Milk Powder
Tests in Taiwan have found minor doses of the industrial chemical melamine in milk powders produced in China by the European food giant Nestle, and those products are being withdrawn

Punishment for 15 senior officials in Taiwan nuke mishap
The Air Force disciplined 15 senior officers, including six generals and nine colonels, for their roles in the mistaken shipment of nuclear weapons components to Taiwan, Air Force officials announced Thursday.

Typhoon Floods Low-Lying Taiwan Areas
Typhoon Sinlaku slammed into Taiwan with heavy rain and strong winds Sunday, flooding low-lying regions

Typhoon Sinlaku dumps rain on Taiwan
Typhoon Sinlaku was moving slowly toward the northern shores of Taiwan on Saturday, promising to dump heavy rain on on the region as it crawls north.

Another Political Storm Hits Taiwan
In a major blow to his DPP party, the family of Taiwan's former president Chen Shui-bian is accused of misusing millions of campaign dollars

Taiwan Ex-Pres Alleged $ Laundering
Former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's son and daughter-in-law returned home Monday from the United States, insisting they are innocent of any criminal role in an alleged money laundering scandal involving their family

Talking to Taiwan's New President
TIME talks to Taiwan's new leader Ma Ying-jeou about making friends with Beijing -- and how Taiwan could change China

Ma Ying-jeou: Creating closer ties
Elected with the largest margin of victory in the history of Taiwan's presidential elections, President Ma Ying-jeou is aiming to bring the good times back to Taiwan while looking to a friendlier future with China.

Tropical storm 'kills 14' in Taiwan
A tropical storm that lashed Taiwan on Friday killed at least 14 people, according to Taiwanese media reports.

Historic China-Taiwan flights begin
The first regular charter flights between China's mainland and Taiwan began Friday in a sign of warming relations between Beijing and Taipei.

Taiwan to Welcome Chinese Tourists
Taiwan's tourist attractions have a fresh coat of paint and restaurants are laying on special buffet lunches in anticipation of a surge in visitors from China when regular commercial flights between the old foes start Friday

China and Taiwan reopen talks
Chinese and Taiwanese officials agreed Thursday to set up permanent offices in each other's territories, in the first formal talks between the two sides in almost a decade.

China, Taiwan seek talks as relations warm
Chinese President Hu Jintao called for a resumption of talks "as early as possible" with Taiwan during a meeting with the island's ruling party's chairman in Beijing, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

Taiwan Pres Doubts China Unification
Taiwan's new leader Ma Ying-jeou said Thursday that unification with longtime rival China is unlikely "in our lifetimes" because the Taiwanese oppose the mainland's authoritarian rule

Return to Sender: The US Nuke Slip
The Pentagon plans to probe a politically sensitive 'misshipment' of nuclear missile components to Taiwan - Beijing's arch-nemesis

U.S. says missile parts mistakenly sent to Taiwan
The U.S. Defense Department accidentally shipped ballistic missile components to Taiwan, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Pentagon Admits Arms Shipment Flub
The Pentagon announced on Tuesday that it mistakenly shipped non-nuclear components for an intercontinental ballistic missile to Taiwan from a U.S. Air Force base in Wyoming

Taiwan votes, with China on minds
Voters in Taiwan on Saturday headed to the polls to vote in presidential elections, with the recent violence in Tibet in the backdrop and Taiwan's own relations with China on the front burner.

Opposition sweep to victory in Taiwan
Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party won a landslide victory in legislative elections Saturday, giving a big boost to its policy of closer engagement with China two months before a presidential poll it now seems poised to win.

Typhoon pounds Taiwan, China
Typhoon Wipha, with wind gusts up to 185 mph (298 kph), forced schools and businesses in Taiwan to close Tuesday as it churned toward the central Chinese coast.

Taiwan's War of Words with the U.S.
Taipei's bid for U.N. membership was always sure to anger Beijing. But President Chen Shui-bian has riled allies in Washington as well

Hundreds of thousands flee typhoon
Typhoon Sepat lashed Taiwan with strong winds and torrential rain on Saturday, cutting power supplies to nearly 57,000 homes, injuring 12 people and forcing more than a thousand others to evacuate, before ploughing on toward China.

Typhoon Sepat hammers Taiwan
Strong wind and rains lashed Taiwan as Typhoon Sepat made landfall on Saturday, cutting power supplies to more than 70,000 homes and forcing airlines to delay flights.

Quakes strike off Taiwan; tsunami appears unlikely
Two earthquakes struck off the southwest coast of Taiwan on Tuesday, the second anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster that left more than 200,000 dead.

Misreading Missiles
Asia has more geopolitical hot spots than any region in the world. Political analysts and investors worry that North Korea might stumble into nuclear war with the U.S., that China might invade Taiw...

Typhoon, quake leave Taiwan shaken, stirred
As typhoon Longwang approached Taiwan, a moderate earthquake shook the island, prompting some residents to flee their homes.

Son: Father innocent of spy charge
The son of an American being held under house arrest in China on suspicion of conducting espionage for Taiwan said his father is an apolitical businessman who has no contacts in Taiwan and no dealings with any government agencies there.

Typhoon strengthens near Taiwan
A powerful typhoon in the East China Sea near Taiwan has intensified, with winds of 148 kilometers per hour (92 miles per hour) and gusts up to 185 km/h (115 mph), the CNN Weather Center says.

Thousands flee as storm hits China
China evacuated more than 1 million residents along its southeastern coast as a typhoon that devastated Taiwan hit the mainland on Tuesday.

Taiwan leader urges China talks
Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has urged Beijing to negotiate with his government days after a landmark meeting between the island's opposition leader and China's president.

Foes put past behind them in China
Taiwan's opposition leader and Chinese President Hu Jintao have vowed to work together at the first meeting between the rivals in half a century.

China woos Taiwan non-separatists
An intriguing calm has settled on the Taiwan Strait as the Chinese Communist Party administration focuses on united-front tactics to woo non-separatist elements in the "breakaway province" of Taiwan.

China condemns Taiwan protests
A massive protest in Taiwan against China's new anti-secession laws is a misuse of people power, Chinese media said on Monday.

Taiwan: War bill a big provocation
Taiwan's government has warned that China's new anti-secession law is a "war bill" that will have a "serious impact" on security in the region.

Beijing lays down law over Taiwan
China has unveiled a controversial new law that would allow Beijing to use military action against Taiwan if peaceful means fail to stop the island pursuing independence.

U.S. urges China to rethink Taiwan law
The Bush administration has labelled as "unhelpful" a Chinese law authorizing the use of military force to prevent Taiwan from formally declaring its independence and urged Beijing to reconsider the measure.

New law sparks Taiwan protests
Thousands of people in Taiwan have taken to the streets to protest China's planned anti-secession law.

China: No independence for Taiwan
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao opened the annual session of the National People's Congress in Beijing by saying a planned anti-secession law would never permit independence for Taiwan.

China congress opens
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is delivering his opening address at the annual session of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

Taiwan president quits party post
Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian has resigned as leader of his party, taking the blame for a weekend legislative election defeat.

Taiwan says no to new mandate
The people of Taiwan have said no to a new mandate to accelerate President Chen Shui-bian's pro-independence policies.

Upset win for Taiwan opposition
Taiwan's opposition has won a legislative majority in a stunning upset over President Chen Shui-Bian's pro-independence coalition.

Strong quake rattles Taiwan
A large earthquake centered off Taiwan's eastern coast shook buildings in the capital of Taipei, damaging buildings and injuring several people, officials said.

Taiwan's Chen asks China to talk
Taiwan's leader has used his National Day speech to urge China to begin talks so that the two rivals can avoid war.

Where Hu stands on U.S., Taiwan
After patriarch Jiang Zemin's long overdue retirement, the Chinese leadership under President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao may pursue a more aggressive policy towards the United States and Taiwan.

Typhoon Aere batters Taipei
A strong typhoon is whirling across northern Taiwan, closing financial markets and schools for a second day.

Taiwan braces for Typhoon Aere
Financial markets, schools and businesses in Taipei and other parts of Taiwan have been shut as a strong typhoon closes in on the island.

Taiwan braces for typhoon Mindulle
Taiwan has issued land and sea warnings for Typhoon Mindulle -- the strongest storm to threaten the island this year -- which is set to brush past on Thursday.

Conflict risks dragging in U.S.
China has long threatened to reunify Taiwan by force if necessary, and has hundreds of missiles in place along its east coast, across the Taiwan strait.

China's war of words
The swearing in of Taiwan's president has given the Chinese government an opportunity to remind Taipei of the consequences of moves towards independence.

Top U.S. Taiwan official resigns
The head of the unofficial U.S. government office handling diplomatic relations with Taiwan has resigned, the State Department says.

China scolds U.S. over radar sale
China has reacted angrily to U.S. plans to sell high tech radar systems to Taiwan, denouncing the move as being against Washington's commitment to Beijing's "one-China" policy.

Clashes as Taiwan mulls recount
Angry protesters have stormed the headquarters of Taiwan's Central Election Commission as it formally declared President Chen Shui-bian the winner of Saturday's disputed poll.

Taiwan grapples with recount plans
Protests rattled Taiwan for a fourth day as the nation's main political parties grappled with competing plans to hold a recount of the weekend's contentious presidential election.

Taiwan riled by poll deadlock
Thousands of opposition supporters have refused to disband protests in Taipei until votes are recounted as conspiracy theories and allegations of fraud swirl around the weekend poll.

Report: Taiwan to seal ballots
Taiwan's high court has ordered all ballot boxes sealed as demonstrators protest the results of presidential elections, according to The Associated Press.

Taiwan: The two candidates
Profiles of the two candidates in Taiwan's presidential election:

Taiwan's first referendum
Taiwan will hold its first-ever referendum to coincide with Saturday's presidential election in a move that has infuriated arch-foe China and alarmed the United States.

Taiwan polls 'could spark crisis'
As campaigning for elections hits full swing across Taiwan the unfolding political drama is reverberating in capitals as far away as Beijing and Washington.

China 'won't meddle' with Taiwan
China has denounced plans by Taiwan's president to push ahead with a poll next month but says it won't interfere.

Unsafe bird culling worries WHO
Chicken cullers across Asia have been warned to wear protective clothing or risk catching the lethal bird flu and creating a global epidemic.

China spy drama aims to spook Chen
Cross-Straits propaganda warfare over a number of mainland-based "Taiwan spies" has shifted into a higher gear with Beijing allowing family members to visit two of the alleged spooks.

Why Taiwan May Be Next To Fall
The dismal list is familiar: high debt, rising bankruptcies, falling real estate prices, low returns on capital, bad loans, and bank balance sheets curling at the edges. But this isn't Japan we're ...

Capital Controls Done Right SOUND MONETARY POLICY, MADE IN TAIWAN
It is true that in general, capital controls don't work. But one Asian country suggests that under special circumstances they can. We refer, of course, to Taiwan.

DIRE STRAITS A WORRIED TAIWAN IS TRYING TO STEM THE TIDE OF INVESTMENT IN CHINA. THAT STRATEGY COULD SINK ITS ECONOMY.
In the heart of downtown Taipei, a bronze statue of the Generalissimo seems to brood over his legacy. Chiang Kai-shek, visitors to his memorial are told, was "the first statesman of world stature t...

LOOK WHO'S BUYING U.S. REAL ESTATE
Cash-rich Asian buyers, led by Chinese investors from Hong Kong and Taiwan, are on a spree buying U.S. office buildings, hotels, and condos. Unlike the wave of Japanese who paid premium prices for ...

A NEW CHINA WITHOUT BORDERS Money and management from Taiwan and Hong Kong are transforming the south into a powerhouse.
SMART-LOOKING SHOPS along Xizheng Street sell Japanese cameras, Reebok shoes, French cognac, Motorola mobile phones, and M&M candy. After hours, people pour into karaoke sing-along bars, coffeehous...

Taiwan: News & Videos about Taiwan - CNN.com
Find stories, videos, and photos about Taiwan from CNN.com.

 

YANKS 1ST CHOICE: WANG
(ChinaPost.com.tw) - New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming said yesterday he prefers to stay in the Yankees next season unless he is forced to make another choice.

China Post Online - Taiwan , News
Taiwan's leading English-language newspaper since 1952. The China Post Online is the leading online provider of news and business and entertainment information on Taiwan.

 

Life Sentence for Former Taiwanese President

China to Invest in Taiwan
Taiwan will become more dependent upon Beijing as it opens up to Chinese investment.

Taiwan Moves Toward Unity With Communist China
Will Taiwan’s efforts to negotiate with China result in peace or annexation?

Ma Ying-jeou and Taiwan's New Direction
Will Taiwan’s efforts to appease Beijing result in it being annexed by mainland China?

New Taiwanese Government Hopes to Improve Ties With China
Taiwan has a new, pro-Chinese parliament. What will the future between Taiwan and China be?

U.S.-Taiwan Relations Worsen
American support for Taiwan is on the decline; could a betrayal be in its future?

Costa Rica Defects From Taiwan, Other Nations May Follow
Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation is growing more precarious.

Taiwanese President Uncertain About U.S. Support
Taiwan’s existence as an independent body is one of the few areas left in the world that shows the United States’ international power and prestige. But how long will it remain?

Beijing's New Law
China’s new “anti-seccesion” law is causing quite a stir in East Asia. Here’s why this law is, and is not, a big deal.

theTrumpet.com: Taiwan
theTrumpet.com -- Understand your world.

 

China Focuses on Territorial Issues as It Equates Tibet to U.S. Civil War South
While much attention during President Obama’s visit will be focused on trade and climate change, questions of sovereignty and territory remain an obsession of Chinese foreign policy.

Taiwan Firm Positioned for E-Reader Takeoff
Prime View International already produces displays for the most popular e-readers. By the end of the year, it will own the company that produces the “ink” for them.

Wartime China’s Elegant Enigma
Mme. Chiang Kai-shek led a long, vastly complicated life, one that is richly detailed in Hannah Pakula’s long, vastly complicated new biography.

The Taint of Scandal in Taiwan's Pro League
The latest baseball investigation in Taiwan has many gloomy about the future of a sport that has given the island an identity.

A.I.G. Sells Taiwan Unit for $2.15 Billion
American International Group announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to sell its Taiwan life insurance unit to a Hong Kong investor group.

Mining Taiwan's Darker History
''Prince of Tears,'' the latest film by Yonfan, is the first major movie in 20 years to explore the "White Terror" period that followed Taiwan's separation from Communist China.

Taiwan and China
Taipei is slowly and steadily being drawn to the idea of "one country, two systems."

Untold Stories of China and Taiwan
Lung Yingtai’s new book retells the turbulent beginning of the Communist Party in China through the stories of ordinary people, including her own parents.

A Modern Spin on Spirituality
The outdoor exhibition ''Li Chen: Mind.Body.Spirit'' in Singapore shows how the sculptor melds a contemporary style with his study of Buddhism and Taoist philosophies.

Life Sentence for Taiwan Ex-President
Chen Shui-bian, the former president of Taiwan who had been on trial since March for corruption, was sentenced to life in prison on Friday.

Prime Minister of Taiwan Quits Over Typhoon Response
Prime minister Liu Chao-shiuan of Taiwan resigned after his government was widely criticized for its response to a deadly typhoon. The entire cabinet is to be replaced this week.

California Wins Little League Title
Kiko Garcia pitched three-plus scoreless innings in relief, and Bulla Graft singled in the go-ahead run in the fourth inning.

Dalai Lama Visit Adds to Taiwan Leader’s Troubles
The decision by the president of Taiwan to allow the visit threatens to jeopardize improving relations with China.

Taiwan’s Leader Faces Anger Over Storm Response
The government’s slow response to a storm that left at least 650 people dead or missing has shaken the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou.

Two Taiwan Ministers Offer to Quit Over Typhoon Response
The defense minister and the head of the cabinet were said to have offered to resign Wednesday in the politically charged aftermath of Typhoon Morakot.

NYT > Taiwan
World news about Taiwan, including breaking news and archival articles published in The New York Times.

 

Cultural center
President Ma Ying-jeou said yesterday his administration plans to open a cultural center in Tokyo to facilitate the promotion of cultural exchanges between Taiwan and

Office in Sapporo
Taiwan's representative office in Sapporo will be opened Dec. 1, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official said yesterday. The office will be officially known as

Vice Foreign Minister in heated debut at Legislative Yuan
New Vice Foreign Minister Shen Lyushun marked his debut appearance at the Legislative Yuan amid vehement verbal clashes with aides and lawmakers alike, reports said

KMT likely to lose 3 counties in local elections, says poll
The ruling Kuomintang was likely to lose control over three counties in the Dec. 5 local elections, a poll said yesterday. The opposition Democratic Progressive Party

Former Interior Minister Yu Cheng-hsien gets two-year suspended sentence for corruption
Former Interior Minister Yu Cheng-hsien was sentenced to two years in prison suspended for five years yesterday in one of the corruption scandals surrounding jailed

Now is not the right time for cross-strait peace talks: Wu
Premier Wu Den-yih stated yesterday that the time is not yet ripe for negotiations for a cross-strait "peace agreement" with the People's Republic of China

Politics
83

 

Taipei to inspect salt in shops within three weeks
Taipei City's Department of Health will complete a citywide inspection of all salt on sale in shops within three weeks following news that industrial salt was being sold as food-grade salt.

The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office on Wednesday launched an investigation into a company that had allegedly been repackaging industrial salt as food-grade salt and selling it on the market for more than three years.

The company, Huan Hai Co (環海), allegedly bought industrial salt from state-owned Taiyen for NT$3 per kilogram and resold it for a healthy profit.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors including Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) and Huang Hsiang-chun (黃向群) urged the Taipei City Government to take action to protect consumers and ensure the safety of salt on the market.

"This government leaves the people living under constant fear, with problems such as poisoned milk, bad oil at fast food chains and industrial salt. The city government should ensure food safety," Chuang said at the Taipei City Council.

Chuang and Huang collected 23 kinds of food-grade salt sold on the market, and said it would be impossible for consumers to tell the quality of the various salts, the cost of which ranged from NT$15 to NT$200 per package.

Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美), director of the Taipei Health Department's food and drug division, said the division would inspect all kinds of salt on the market, test them for heavy metals and publish the results in about three weeks.

Chiang said it would be difficult to spot the difference between industrial and food-grade salt. Consumers should read the list of ingredients on the package as a safety monitoring measure, she said. The division will investigate the responsibility of stores or importers whose salt is found to contain heavy metals, she said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said there was no evidence that salt sold on the market was contaminated with anything, appealing to the public not to panic.

"From a food safety angle, there are no safety concerns about the salt currently sold on the market," said Chen Chao-yih (陳昭義), vice chairman of the MOEA State-owned Enterprise Commission.

Agencies including the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection and the Department of Health have not found a single case of contamination by harmful ingredients, he said.

The bureau will randomly check around 5 percent of imports of edible salt at customs, including those from China, while the health department checks on the edible salts available in stores and at hypermarkets.

Huang Lai-ho (黃來和), the bureau's deputy director-general, said 151 batches totaling 11.2 million kilograms of edible salt had been imported from China so far this year, accounting for 70 percent of the country's imported edible salt.

Persons with disabilities to rally for rights
December 3 is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and "Live Without Barriers', sponsored by Nookhope in Taipei, will commemorate the date with a parade on Saturday. Disabled persons are invited to come to Ketagalan Boulevard to demand equal civil rights.

Nookhope founder and chair Lian Mei-man says that Ketagalan Boulevard used to be a very sensitive location for Taiwan's government. In the past, demonstrators of all stripes have aired their views here. Only the disabled have been left out. This year, the group plans to take to the streets to celebrate the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and show that the disabled are every bit as diverse a group as able-bodied persons, while requesting equal rights and respect.

The "Nookhope Grand Parade of the People" will set off at 1 p.m. on November 21 from Ketagalan Boulevard, and proceed to Chingfumen and Liberty Square at the CKS Memorial Hall. At 11 a.m., a "Live Without Barriers" parade will set off from the square to show the creativity disabled people bring to their everyday lives. Finally, a concert will be held from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

In addition, the Taipei City Government Office of Social Services has rallied a group of 120 disabled persons and Internet users and three guide dogs via the Internet and will bring them together on November 20 at 12:03 at the Shinkong Mitsukoshi in the Xinyi District for a quick event marking the kickoff of the 2009 International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Also on Saturday, there will be a "Love Without Barriers" event held at the Shinkong plaza, which will feature wheelchair ballroom dance exhibitions, displays of adaptive products and information booths.

EPA officials investigating dead fish found near wharf
Hundreds of dead fish were discovered on Tuesday on the banks of the Danshui River near the Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕碼頭) in Taipei.

Area residents said that they began noticing the dead fish, which included mullet and milkfish, floating on the surface at around 7 a.m.

Chen Ying-hui (陳穎慧), the neighborhood chief for Guoshun Borough (國順), which borders the river, told reporters he suspected that the fireworks show that took place at the wharf earlier this month could be a factor in the fish kill.

The fireworks show was held by the Taipei City Government to mark the one-year countdown to the 2010 International Flora Exhibition.

Chen said he suspected that the large amounts of chemicals deposited in the river by the fireworks might have polluted the riverbed.

Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) officials said that they hadn't determined the cause of the fish kill, but said it could be because of the rapidly cooling weather, which lowers oxygen levels in the water.

Investigators said they had sent samples of the dead fish to labs for analysis and the reports should be back within the next three days.

Taipei City to demand compensation for MRT troubles
The Taipei City Government announced on Tuesday that it would demand NT$95.41 million (about US$3 million) in compensation from an engineering firm for the troubled Wenhu Mass Rapid Transit line.

Since opening last July 4 under the name of Neihu-Muzha Line, it fell victim to several major stoppages and minor technical problems. The city singled out the difficult harmonization of the new Neihu segment built by Canada's Bombardier Inc. with the more than ten-year-old Muzha Line, designed by France's Matra.

Just ahead of September's Deaflympics, the whole line spent two weekends idle during repairs. However, the city is also facing compensation claims from Bombardier over the suspension of a renewal plan for train cars.

The city's compensation request from subcontractor Kunghsin Construction would include NT$14.24 million for the weekend repairs and NT$81.17 million to cover all extra technical and personnel-related expenses, said Richard Chen, the commissioner of the city government's Department of Rapid Transit Systems at a Taipei City Council budget discussion on Tuesday.

The second part included NT$43.15 million in extra staff expenses, NT$21.09 million in ticket fares not received because of the breakdowns, NT$9 million in compensation payments to travelers and NT$7.69 million for extra bus services, Chen said.

The official rejected arguments from Bombardier it could claim compensation from the city for its delays in ordering the renewal of cars. The postponement was caused by the general problems with the system, so the company had no cause to demand compensation, Chen said.

The city is planning to go ahead with the opening of new lines at the pace of one every year until 2014.

Taiwanese tailors crowned in international contest
Grand Custom Tailor Co. and Cho Rong Industrial in Taipei won the top awards for creative male suits and female dresses in the 2009 World Congress of Master Tailors competition in Austria in August.

The two firms' defeating some of the world's most renowned tailors proved that Taiwan owns outstanding craftsmanship as well as creativity. They also helped make Taiwan known as the place for making excellent suits.

Grand Custom Tailor won the top creativity prize in the category of suits for men. The company's top tailor, Chen He-ping, designed and cut the suit to make it suitable for fancy occasions as well as for more ordinary affairs. Chen boldly designed a neckline that was a combination of a Chinese-style flat collar and a more typical Western collar. The collar, which was done in a silky pink material, was designed to extend the eyeline down the suit in an X pattern. The most ingenious part of the design was the hidden zipper. This meant that the collar to the suit could be unzipped and taken off, turning the jacket from an ordinary jacket into a jacket featuring coattails.

Chen He-ping says that while Taiwan's suit industry has honed its technical expertise over the past 10 years, it has lagged somewhat in terms of fashion sense and what's popular. But the country has started to make a name itself on the international stage after taking part in a number of international competitions and events. This is proving that Taiwan's skills in suit-making are gaining more and more clout worldwide, he says.

While many might think that men have a monopoly on suits, this is not the case. In fact, in recent years, tailor shops are increasingly looking to females as a source of business. Cho Rong Industrial, well known for making women's uniforms, has always kept an eye out for what is in fashion in order to manufacture extremely stylish products.

Liao Jia-lin has taken the stiff impression of cloth used to make men's suits and has changed this into dresses that feature interesting curves and forms. The cheongsam that Liao designed for the competition was an enormous hit with the judges, and it won top prize for creativity for women's wear.

The honorary chairman of the Taipei Tailor Commerce Association, Lin Zi-long, says that what makes hand-made suits so attractive is that they are made to fit the physiques of the persons who order them. The suits have a great style about them and are formfitting, he says, adding that tailors are able to offer outstanding after-sales service on the suits, enabling the suits to be used for decades. During the process of making the suits, the tailors will often leave extra fabric around the waist of legs so that the suit can be taken out a bit should its owner gain a few pounds over the years.

Architects buck convention in designing 'invisible' green buildings
os 46-49 By Elizabeth Hsu CNA staff writer



If the Beitou Public Library is seen as a fresh breath of air among Taipei's lifeless concrete buildings, three planned exhibition halls for the 2010 International Flora Exposition in Taipei may end up being seen as a strong gust of wind sweeping nature through the city.

The two architects who built Taiwan's first green-certified library in the suburban Taipei City district of Beitou have now been contracted by the city government to design three pavilions at the planned flower show, and their aspirations for the new buildings go far behind their goals for the library.

While the Beitou Library was simply designed to "breath, " Kuo Ying-chao and Chang Ching-hwa of Taipei-based Bioarch Formorsana architects hope the expo pavilions in Xinsheng Park will mesh seamlessly with the environment and imitate nature.

"The buildings will be landmarks that will not be for people to see but for people to feel, " say the two, whose vision of sustainable architecture is to eschew the traditional pursuit of visually striking landmarks like the Eiffel Tower or Sydney Opera House.

"We try to build structures that are as invisible as possible and leave a minimal footprint on the land," Kuo says.

The buildings designed by the architects -- the Pavilion of Dreams, Pavilion of Life, and Pavilion of the Future -- are among six new buildings the city is constructing for its first-ever international horticulture exposition recognized by the International Association of Horticultural Producers -- but the only three that will carry the "green label" at the flower show.

Unobtrusive from ground level, the halls are oddly configured, both to conform to their natural surroundings and for symbolic reasons.

Kuo and Chang wanted to avoid uprooting native species of trees on the site and thus designed the buildings around the natural growth that was already there and shaped them like butterflies at different stages of life because they are the creatures closest to flowers -- the theme of the show.

As a result, the Pavilion of Dreams has been shaped like a butterfly pupa and the combined Pavilion of Life and Pavilion of the Future is shaped like a swallowtail butterfly's wings.

Aside from the buildings' symbolism, Kuo and Chang also stressed that they be "sustainable, environmentally friendly, and energy efficient" because they will remain on the site after the expo ends in April 2011 to serve as galleries or exhibition centers.

And that means going green. Although it complicated the design of the project and put added pressure on an already tight construction schedule, Kuo and Chang applied for the buildings to be diamond certified under Taiwan's unique EEWH Green Building Assessment System.

Thanks to their determination, the pavilions, scheduled to be completed in March 2010, were approved as candidates for the country's highest honor in green buildings, but they will have to be inspected after completion to be formally given the diamond certificate.

Taiwan became the fourth country in the world to institute a green building assessment system when, in 1999, it launched the EEWH standard, which stands for ecology, energy saving, waste reduction and health.

Buildings are graded on nine indicators within those four categories: foliage; water soil content (infiltration and retention); energy savings (for the building envelope, lighting and HVAC -- heating, ventilating, and air conditioning); carbon dioxide emissions reduction; construction waste reduction; water conservation; garbage and sewage improvements; biodiversity; and indoor environmental quality.

Their scores determine which of the five levels of certification -- diamond, gold, silver, bronze and certified -- the building earns.

According to green building experts, though the program has received widespread attention, its impact has been limited because only government projects are required by law to meet the standard, and they generally do so at the lowest level to meet limited construction budgets.

For architects like Kuo and Chang, there is no financial incentive to pursue the highest level of certification, and local clients rarely ask for truly sustainable buildings. Chang acknowledges that designing "green" may have even cost the firm money in the past.

With nothing to gain, some of their peers may question their sanity. So why do they pursue diamond-level certification for their projects?

"Because it offers a new challenge, " said Chang, who has been interested in green building throughout her career. "As a professional, you want to push yourself into new areas instead of doing the same old thing, and this is the direction of the future."

The Beitou Public Library became the first building in Taiwan to be diamond certified, and remains only one of three in the country to have received the highest certification to date.

But while Kuo and Chang had four years to finish the library, they have only 20 months to complete the Xinsheng Park project -- 10 times larger than the Beitou project.

Yet the time pressure does not mean the architects will hold back on green design features.

To save energy, the three buildings will have solar panels on their rooftops that will generate enough power to run each of them for 2-3 hours a day and cool air will be fed into the pavilions from underground vents.

Rather than using tap water to irrigate plants at the expo, they will draw water from the neighboring Keelung River and purify it naturally on the expo site to do the job, reducing water consumption by an estimated 60 percent.

Also, the buildings are equipped with an automatic temperature monitoring systems that can detect temperature changes outside of the pavilions and adjust the indoor air conditioning as necessary.

Another important sustainable green feature and one that will keep temperatures inside the pavilions down will be to green the rooftops of the pavilions.

These wild rooftop grasslands will house plants during the exposition and then be home to small shrubs after the show.

"The buildings' rooftops will be like the Chingtiangang grassland on Yangmingshan, " and the grassland on one of the buildings will extend to the ground area to create the sense that the building is part of the park, Chang said.

Like the Beitou Library, "these buildings may become landmarks, but they won't be landmarks you go to see. You'll go to experience them, to experience the relationship between man and the environment, but it won't be a visual experience," Kuo says.

"We hope people will sense the spirit of energy saving and carbon emission reduction from the green buildings," he adds. (With reports by Chen Hui-chen)

DPP councilors question MRT cost
Three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors on Monday accused Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of "granting favors" to the contractor of the MRT Wenhu Line's electromechanical system by allowing it to adjust construction costs based on inflation.

The councilors — Lee Chien-chang (李建昌), Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華) and Huang Hsiang-chun (黃向群) — said Hau had bent the rules set by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during his tenure as city mayor.

"Mayor Ma signed an official notice stating that the construction costs of the MRT's electromechanical systems could not be adjusted because of inflation," Lee told a press conference.

"The terms stated in the MRT contract also exclude contractors of the electromechanical system from adjusting their costs based on inflation and asked them to evaluate risks after they secured contracts," Lee said.

"These documents showed that the contractor asked if it could enjoy the privilege of adjusting its cost based on inflation after winning the bid in 2003," Lee said.

"Prior to 2006, the Department of Rapid Transit Systems [DORTS] repeatedly rejected the contractor’s requests. But in May 2007, the department proposed that the contractor's request be accepted, which was subsequently approved by Hau in November 2007. The city then agreed to pay the contractor NT$1.5 billion in additional cost because of inflation," he said.

Huang also showed a document stating that the city agreed to this settlement because the DORTS said that failure to subsidize the contractor would delay the launch of the Wenhu Line, which was scheduled to begin operations in June.

After the press conference, the three councilors submitted the materials to the Control Yuan for investigation. They also filed lawsuits against Hau for allegedly favoring the contractor.

Taipei City Government spokesperson Rose Chao (趙心屏) rebutted the allegations, saying that the measures were legal.

"The mayor approved the request in accordance with measures laid out by the Public Construction Commission of the Executive Yuan in 2004 stating that construction costs for projects scheduled for completion after October 1, 2003, can be adjusted if inflation exceeded 2.5 percent. This applies to any construction project, even those that have a special clause on inflation in the contract," she said.

Chao said Hau did not bend the rules set by his predecessor, and that Ma established the rule at a time when there was no national regulation governing costs adjustments.

The change was simply made in accordance with the new measures, she said.

Taipei Artist Village to hold winter open studio events
Taipei, Nov. 13 (CNA) Taipei Artist Village (TAV) , a non-government artist community run by the Taipei Culture Foundation, has announced that it will hold a two-day winter open studio event Dec. 5-6, providing an art feast for the public.

"Artists from around the world will show you their artworks from their unlimited creativity, the everlasting passion of their hearts, and their hard work during their residency, " the TAV said in a newsletter.

The 2009 Winter Open Studio event, titled SuPerArt, will be held at the TAV in downtown Taipei and at its sister facility, Grass Mountain Artist Village in suburban Taipei, according to the newsletter.

The participating artists, among many others, include Italian installation artist Carlotta Brunetti, Australian sculptor Julie Bartholomew, Argentinian visual artist Florencia Levy, German choreographer Arco Renz and three Taiwanese artists -- painter Huo Kang, visual artist Tseng Yu-chin and renowned pipa player Luo Chao-yun.

Some artists will open their studios to showcase their complete or ongoing projects and have face-to-face discussions with art enthusiasts, while others will stage performances and set up workshops to interact with the audience, the newsletter said.

Established in 2001, the TAV is Taiwan's first artist village. It serves as a center for creativity, reaching out to local residents and foreign artists through a variety of activities. (By Rachel Chan)

Taipei maps out routes to view public art
Walking is the best way to see what is happening in a city. The Taipei City Government's Department of Cultural Affairs has planned and kicked off its large–scale Taipei Public Art Seven Routes public art walking guide activity.

A large public artwork entitled "The Era of Travel" was unveiled on the 10th of November in the plaza in front of the Songshan Airport subway station. The large work of art, which is in the form of a rollaboard carry-on piece of luggage, will greet the public as they set out to take the Neihu Line of the Taipei mass rapid transit system.

The department said that at present there are over 360 public art works spread throughout Taipei, literately making Taipei a "fine arts museum without walls". Strolling through various areas, one can see a number of public artworks spread throughout the various stations of the Taipei MRT's Neihu Line. The design of the artwork at the Songshan Airport station carries the theme "The Story of Flying". Passersby will see a flying vehicle suspended in the underground station, where a form of a hot air balloon is also on view. In fact, wherever you look in the station, there are various items or paintings that will remind you of flying.

The Gangqian Station has an extremely rare exhibition of a huge piece of embroidery that was collectively made by 84 residents. Entitled "The Neihu Utopia", the embroidery is meant to bring to mind places in the vicinity of the station with various scenes depicted. Meanwhile, the theme of the public art at the Wende Station is "Birds Fly". A mosaic on display in the station showcases an image of waterfowl taking flight.

The department stated that the Public Art Seven Routes also include a corridor of public art along Dunhua Road, a collection of public art at the sports part located at the Dihua wastewater treatment plant, and public art on display in the Nangang Technology Park. More information on the activity and the various routes can be found at: http://taipeipublicart.culture.gov.tw

Hau faces questions on MRT problems
Control Yuan members questioned Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) on Wednesday over the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system's Neihu Line, saying that they did not rule out questioning President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

After the session, Hau said he told Control Yuan members that the city government did not put the line into operation ahead of schedule or shorten the line's trial period. He said the main reason why the line experienced such frequent shutdowns was because of problems in the initial network design.

Control Yuan members Ger Yeong-kuang (葛永光), Chen Yung-hsiang (陳永祥) and Chao Jung-yao (趙榮耀) have launched an investigation into the problems with the line since it opened in July.

The line connecting Muzha and Neihu has experienced malfunctions and system breakdowns, and the city government has been accused of rushing the trial period and opening the line before making sure the systems ran smoothly.

Hau dismissed the allegations on Wednesday, saying that he was told by the city government's Department of Rapid Transit Systems on his first day in office in December 2006 that construction was scheduled to be completed this March and that the line would begin operating in June.

Asked whether Control Yuan members should also question Ma, Hau's predecessor, on how his city government had arranged the integration of the Muzha line and newly built Neihu line systems, Hau said that he respected the Control Yuan's decision. Ger said: "The Presidential Office has said that Ma will cooperate with the [Control Yuan] probe and there is no constitutional problem involved."

Having the president speak to the Control Yuan on the issue would establish a constitutional precedent, and the Control Yuan would consult anyone it deemed necessary, Ger said.

Hau's administration was recently censured by the Control Yuan over the construction of the Maokong Gondola, which was suspended because of erosion under a pillar after a typhoon last year, as well as its refusal to pay health insurance premiums to the central government for non-Taipei City residents.

Sean Lien dismisses DPP allegations about project
Taipei EasyCard Corp chairman Sean Lien (連勝文) yesterday dismissed Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors’ allegations that his company willfully dropped out of the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) project to leave the way clear for Taiwan Smart Card Co.

The latter is headed by the cousin of a senior Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member.

DPP Taipei City councilor Chou Wei-you (周威佑) alleged at a press conference yesterday that Taipei EasyCard did not even enter the bidding process for a TRA project that would allow passengers to travel from Hsinchu to Taipei County’s Rueifang Township (瑞芳) by simply swiping their metro card.

INCONVENIENCE

The TRA has set up card scanning machines from Taipei City to Chungli City (中壢) to save commuters the inconvenience of having to buy a separate train ticket.

The TRA is planning to expand the service for passengers traveling between Hsinchu and Rueifang.

Chou said he suspected that Lien’s company gave up the chance of a potentially profitable deal to accommodate Taiwan Smart Card Company, which is headed by Wu Yun-feng (吳運豐), the cousin of former KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄), as a personal favor while sacrificing the public’s interest.

Lien rejected the allegation, saying the decision was purely a business one after considering an estimated loss of NT$50 million (US$1.54 million) over two years if the company pushed down the costs for the sake of winning the bid.

At a separate setting yesterday, the TRA said three companies expressed an interest in providing its electronic ticketing system, but only Taiwan Smart Card Co passed its qualification review.

It said that the review process is open to public examination.

PRICE

TRA director general Frank Fan (范植谷) said it had yet to close the bid with the Taiwan Smart Card Co because the price the company offered was less than 80 percent of TRA’s base price, which does not fulfill the requirement of the Government Procurement Act (政府採購法).

The TRA is still negotiating over the terms of the agreement with the company, he said.

Even if the TRA rules that Taiwan Smart Card Company has won the bid, Fan said the company was obliged to make up the difference as required in the Act.

Taipei plans BBQ restaurant law
The Taipei City Government is planning to establish new regulations to manage BBQ restaurants in residential areas after residents complained that several chain restaurants harm the air quality in their neighborhoods.

BBQ restaurants with outdoor seating areas have proliferated in residential areas recently, but the noise and smoke they produce disturb residents.

Taipei City’s Department of Environmental Protection said the number of complaints filed against such restaurants has increased significantly.

One BBQ restaurant in the city’s Neihu District (內湖), for example, faced protests in June, and the department slapped it with a NT$100,000 fine for violating gaseous emissions regulations.

The restaurant refused to move to another location, but promised to negotiate with local residents to find a solution.

Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) said the city government should ban the restaurants in residential areas because the city’s emissions regulations do not deter them.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said slapping the restaurants with fines would not solve the problem, and that the city government is drafting new regulations on the locations and business hours of such restaurants. ­

“Current regulations have a ­limited effect on keeping the restaurants from disturbing the residents. We will set up new regulations to regulate restaurants that could potentially damage the quality of life for residents,” he said.

Until such regulations are established, the department said it would dispatch staff to carry out random inspections at BBQ restaurants during business hours and demand that those who violate environmental regulations improve the situation immediately.

Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan could have baby next year
Visitors to the Taipei City Zoo may be able to see a baby Tuan Tuan or Yuan Yuan sometime next year, a panda expert from the Wolong Nature Reserve Administration said yesterday.

Zhang Hemin (張和民), director of the Wolong Nature Reserve Administration in China’s Sichuan Province and also known as the “Father of Pandas,” visited the zoo yesterday to check on the pair, and said Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan could conceive a baby panda in the spring.

“I haven’t seen them for a long time, and I believe that with the zoo’s good care of the pandas, Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan could become sexually mature in time for mating next year,” he said yesterday during a visit to the zoo.

Chang said captive pandas usually reach sexual maturity at the age of five-and-a-half, and can mate until they are 19 years old.

“Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan are only seven years old now [according to the Chinese calendar]. We selected them because of the high chance that they would mate, and so I don’t think it will be a problem for them to have a cub in Taiwan,” he said.

Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan were born in 2004.

Taipei Zoo director Jason Yeh (葉傑生) said the zoo separated Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan earlier this month in preparation for their first breeding season. Zhang said it would arouse the two pandas’ sexual instincts, enhance their natural mating ability and improve their reproductive capacity.

Yeh said the zoo would keep close contact with the administration and is hopeful a baby panda could be conceived as soon as February next year and born as soon as May.

Experts say the gestation period for pandas is anywhere from 95 days to 160 days.

The pair were selected from 23 panda cubs early in 2006 by Beijing as a gift to Taiwan.

The two pandas have become one of the main attractions at the zoo since their arrival last year.

KMT councilor irate over hybrid buses from China
A Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City councilor yesterday accused the Taipei City Government of subsidizing local bus companies to purchase hybrid buses from China.

Taipei City’s Department of Transportation subsidized Capital Bus Co’s purchase of 60 hybrid buses from China for use during the 2010 Taipei International Flora Expo, KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Hao (王浩) said.

The department also spent more than NT$200 million (US$6.2 million) to subsidize the purchase of 265 low-floor buses last year. Some parts of 131 of these buses were made by a factory in China, Wang said.

“The 60 hybrid buses were to be used during the Beijing Olympics, but China sold the buses to Taipei for use in the flora expo instead. In other words, the city government will use products that were made in China to promote an international event organized by Taipei,” he said in a question-and-answer session at Taipei City Hall.

In addition, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) contracted the construction of platform doors at several stations on the city’s MRT Red Line and Blue Line to a local company, which won the bid with an “extremely low price” of NT$145 million.

Wang said the company was able to bring down its price by subcontracting the project to a company in China.

“Even if the use of Chinese products is not illegal, the city officials should have known better. Chinese companies should not be involved in public construction projects in the country’s capital city,” he said.

In response, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said the city government would not import any Chinese products banned by the government.

The 131 low-floor buses were assembled in Taiwan in accordance with current regulations, he said.

As for the 60 hybrid buses, Department of Transportation Commissioner Luo Shiaw-shyan (羅孝賢) said the department would rescind the subsidy if the buses had indeed been purchased from China.

TRTC president Tsai Huei-sheng (蔡輝昇) said there was nothing in the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ regulations that prohibited the import of platform doors from China.

The company reported the situation to the ministry for further clarification, and will demand that the contractor refrain from using products banned by the government, Tsai said.

One-year countdown to Taipei Flora Expo starts
The Taipei City Government yesterday opened the first exhibition pavilion that will be used in the Taipei International Flora Expo on Zhongshan N Road as the city began the 365-day countdown to the event.

The Butterfly Pavilion, one of 14 that have been constructed or renovated around the city for the expo, resembles a butterfly pupa and will be used as a performance center after the expo next year.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) joined local supermodel Lin Chiling (林志玲) and 365 students in celebrating the completion of the pavilion, which he said was expected to boost the city’s international reputation.

“We are hoping that the expo will introduce Taipei to the world and let the world see Taipei is the same way the Deaflympics did,” he said.

Lin, dressed in clothes decorated with flowers, accepted an invitation to serve as one of the expo’s promotion ambassadors. She said she would use every chance she gets to promote the event.

The expo will be held from Nov. 6 next year until April 25, 2011, at several locations around Taipei City. At least five exhibition pavilions will be established around Yuanshan Park and Xinsheng Park in the city’s Datong District (大同).

Hau said the expo would also boost the development of the district with the construction of pavilions and urban projects.

Local painter develops new acrylic painting style
“Originally I did not expect that an industrial coloring agent could be used for painting, but it has opened up a world of interesting changes in the colors,” said the founder of the “jingcai style” of painting, Lan Chih-kuan. She has applied metallic industrial coloring agents to acrylic boards in creating this new form of painting. Lan and over 20 other local artists who are interested in pursuing this innovative type of painting are working to create a name for themselves in the artistic community. They fell into using these industrial coloring agents by accident. The painter explained that the form that the artwork takes is somewhat similar to that of a block print. The colors used are even more vibrant than those used in oil paintings. This has created an entirely unique style of painting, which they refer to as “jingcai,” or “crystal painting.” This type of painting marks quite a breakthrough here, as it is one of the few new forms of self-developed art forms among Taiwan artists in recent years. The coloring agents are pretty similar to those used in the famous “qicai industrial arts” in Japan, where coloring agents are frequently used in ceramics and glasswork. A graduate of National Taiwan University of the Arts, Lan's artistic background helped her experiment. Several years ago, she suddenly came up with the thought of spilling coloring agents all across a piece of acrylic. “What was really interesting was how the industrial coloring agents, on the slippery and glossy surface of the acrylic, would blend together and create intriguing changes. Once I saw the results it seemed like the two types of media were a match made in heaven,” Lan said. Lan became extremely excited and began to devote herself entirely to this new form of art. “In the process of applying the industrial coloring agents to the acrylic, an unlimited number of interesting changes come about. Many painters are quite surprised by these works. Each one of these jingcai crystal paintings is like the life of an artist, which is full of surprise and wonder,” Lan said. A joint exhibition of crystal paintings is currently being held at the Taipei Cultural Center on Bade Road. Meanwhile, Lan has a solo exhibit planned for the second floor exhibition space at the Howard Plaza Hotel that will run from Nov. 12-23.

Outdoor mosaic project beautifies a neighborhood eyesore
The area along the Tamsui River in the Dai Dao Cheng area of Taipei used to be home to cold, featureless, dark dike walls. Now, however, thanks to the efforts of a group of art lovers from the local Sheltering Sky Arts Association, three large murals covering 112 meters of mosaic art are in place. The works have transformed the riverside into a “ten-mile art gallery”, not only brightening the view for local residents, but also helping to bring style back to the area. The Sheltering Sky Art Association is located on Huanhe North Road near the river, and can point to over 30 members, all of whom are aficionados of the arts. Standing on a high floor, one can look out to the beautiful vista of the Tamsui River, but the beauty of the riverside at ground level has been marred by the dike wall and the elevated highway, so that people have gradually forgotten the beautiful view that used to be accessible here. “Why does a dike have to be so ugly?” “It looks so far away but it’s really not!” Association art teacher Bo Yin-ping once lived in New York City, before coming back to live in this part of Taipei some years back. Every time she sees the gray wall of the dike, she always thinks that Taiwan shouldn’t allow a separation between the river and the life of the people. In particular, the Tai Tao Cheng area of Taipei was founded and prospered on the use of the Tamsui River as a means of transporting goods, so the feeling of the riverbanks should not be lost to the people there. The arts association thus decided to first begin work on the wall of the dike located between Huanhe North Road and Nanjing West Road, across the street from its headquarters. Their intent was to transform a black, dirty, closed-in space bounded by a cement wall into a work of art. The first work, titled “Rebirth of the Great River”, was begun using small donations from members. The Taipei City Government’s Department of Cultural Affairs also provided an NT$400,000-plus subsidy. To keep the art fresh without changes for at least 10 years, the decision was made to use mosaics instead of paint, and a master mosaic artist from Yingge was brought in to transform the wall. The process of creating a mosaic is a complex one, and after Bo had completed the design for the stretch of wall, the association’s members divided up the tasks at hand. They first wanted to look at the wall and decide how the mosaic should be divided up and what color palette would be best, so that the perspective, sense of space and dimensionality of the completed work would be correct. After the Yingge ceramics workshop had fired and sorted the colors of the pieces to be used, they had to be put in place on site, starting from the top and working downward. Again, the dimensionality, color saturation and hue all had to be harmonious. Finally, the actual work had to be fixed onto the wall, while contending all the while with a busy flow of vehicles and pedestrians. Given these challenges, each mosaic took at least a year from start to finish. Everyone liked the results when the first mosaic was completed, and with assistance from the Department of Cultural Affairs, two years ago a second one, titled “Endless Space”, was begun at the intersection with Minsheng West Road. The third mosaic is located next to the doc and is titled “Rebirth of Elegance”. For this work, local residents and children were invited to try their hands at fitting the pieces in, symbolically putting their hands to developing their neighborhood. “It’s not just beautiful, it embodies the resolution to transform this community,” says Bo. The wall of the dike here is now a public work of art, bringing beauty to all and also representing the feeling local residents have for their home.

'Walk for Health' events bring fitness closer to home
The Department of Health of the Taipei City Government is conducting a "Walk for Health" program at school playgrounds from Monday through Friday. Those interested in participating may dial 1999 to obtain more information from 12 District Health Centers.

The center has been holding the events on weekdays at 4:30 at the Laosong Elementary School since the beginning of June, 2009. Elderly residents are invited to participate, and each participant receives a free pedometer, a Passport to Weight Loss, and a hat. The events have been drawing from 200 to 300 walkers daily.

Lu Hui-chen, director of the center, says that Fan Tian-cheng, the head of the Fu Ming Neighborhood, used to snore badly, which bothered his wife to no end. After coming out for the walks, however, his snoring has disappeared, much to his wife's delight and relief. The center examined the walkers and discovered that after joining the program, 32% of them had been successful in gaining or losing weight, while 10% had reduced their waist sizes and 18% saw a drop in their BMI -- all good indications of improved health.

Lu says that after discovering the benefits of walking, some local elderly residents have started putting on their hats and coming out on their own to walk in the mornings as well. The friendly greetings and calls of encouragement exchanged make the activity good for the spirit as well as the body.

Prescription medication cited as cause in sleepwalking burglary cases
Early on the morning of December 15, 2007, 46-year-old Ms. Yu set off for Chengde Road in Taipei armed with a screwdriver, which she used to break the glass on a car window, stealing NT$100,000 and a digital camera from inside. On the 28th of the same month, she again used the same means to break into a car on Tonghe Street, coming away with the owner's clothing, a watch, and other articles. On January 10, 2008, she was apprehended by the police while breaking into a car owned by a Mr. Pai.

At her trial at the Shilin District Court, Yu admitted to three counts of breaking into an automobile, but stated that she had been depressed for a long time and had serious problems with insomnia. She had been seen at Taipei Veterans' General Hospital numerous times, where doctors had diagnosed her and prescribed a certain type of sleeping pills. After she began taking the drug, her insomnia was cured, but she suffered from blackouts and abnormal judgment and behavior. These eventually led to her committing break-ins while half-asleep, she claimed.

In a letter to Taipei Veterans' General Hospital, the court asked for more information regarding the sleeping pills and Yu's use of the drug. The hospital responded saying that one of the side effects of the drug was indeed problems involving consciousness, hallucinations, loss of memory and sleepwalking, and added that the majority of patients suffering from these were women.

The court found that Yu had no prior convictions, and that her going alone to remote areas like the dike at the city limits to steal things was not "commonly seen" behavior. Added to this was the fact that after her arrest, on January 23, she went back to the hospital for further treatment, where a doctor determined that the side effects of the drug had influenced her behavior. After a switch to a different medication, the situation was alleviated, and Yu has never been seen stealing anything since.

Because the Court believed that Yu's crimes were caused by a reduced capacity in the wake of taking prescription medication, it sentenced her to 9 months for the serial thefts, but suspended the sentence for three years so that she could put her life back together.

Underground mall offers weatherproof attractions for all
The Taipei Easy Mall, called the "Zhongshan Underground Street" in Chinese, is located between the Taipei Main and Shuanglian MRT stations, covering a total length of 815 meters. After opening in 2000, Taipei's first MRT mall did not attract as many customers as anticipated. From 2000 to 2003, the mall languished without many commercial interests moving in.

Today, however, this underground mall bustles at noon with more and more white-collar workers stopping in each day to take a healthy walk. Some people walk for 30 to 40 minutes and put in about 10,000 steps. Others take the MRT from Shihlin especially to come here just for lunch and a relaxing time.

The facilities in the Easy Mall include a special square, providing young people with a dancing space with a four-wall mirror. There is a professional-grade stage in the middle, and young people perform or practice enthusiastically here day and night. The spectacle has become one of the hallmarks of the mall. One high-school student, "Hsiao B", says the biggest advantage of the underground mall is that it keeps people out of the rain, sun and wind. Moreover, the air-conditioned mall sports many chairs and tables and has become a gathering place for the elderly as well. They come here to read newspaper, play chess or chat with friends.

For the past two years, the mall has had book vendors in residence. They offer new books at a good discount, and regularly hold "book fairs" at which prices may drop to 20% of the original ticket. Some books can be had for as little as NT$10. As such, this has become a favorite destination for book lovers throughout the city.

The Children's Book City, in place for less than a year now, gives kids a place of their own to come and read. On weekends, there are parent-child activities organized here, and it has become a favorite retreat for children, and people with kids.

The Taipei Museum of Modern Art cooperates too, holding an "Experience Creativity Show" underground each month. The displays feature vanguard works of modern art, allowing people to enjoy them for free. The art adds to the cultural diversity on show at the mall. Artist Chiang Wei-chen says that it is possible to see works of art by artists of all ages and backgrounds in the mall, and the challenge lies in somehow shrinking this underground town through visual art.

Taipei Zoo classifies its recipe for pangolins
Pangolins, also known as scaly anteaters, mainly rely on ants and termites for food. Their eating habits are quite different from other animals', says Taipei City Zoo spokesman Jin Shih-qian.

Because it can be difficult for them to find food in their natural habitat, pangolins can stay in a state of partial starvation for long periods of time. If they are raised in a controlled environment, pangolins often eat foods that do not agree with them or succumb to digestive ulcers, which can lead to death. As a result, pangolins have a low rate of survival in captivity. Therefore, zoos throughout the world have largely given up having pangolins due to problems associated with finding the right foods for them.

Taiwan has a high level of development in low-altitude areas. Wild pangolins have been hit by vehicles as they cross roads or injured in attacks by wild dogs. The injured pangolins are sent to the Taipei City Zoo to have their wounds treated and their health looked after. Given their frequent contact with the mammal, veterinarians at the zoo developed a unique diet for the animals that has been quite successful in helping them to survive.

Jin says that the so-called "Pangolin Diet" is based on the nutritional composition of ants and consists of a mixture of proteins, the addition of various nutrients, as well as dietary fiber. The pangolins are fed on the diet in a rational manner to extend their livespans. The Taipei Zoo has exchanged this recipe and their technology in taking care of pangolins with the Leipzig Zoo in Germany.

Jin says that the scales and the tails of pangolins are frequently smuggled throughout Southeast Asia because they are widely believed to have the effect of treating bruises, clearing mammary glands and boosting sexual stamina. The zoo's recipe for feeding the pangolins therefore is sought after by many of these smugglers so that they can use it to raise large numbers of the animals in captivity. The zoo strictly forbids this, however, and it has taken measures to make sure that the recipe does not get into the hands of unscrupulous people.

Accord signed to uphold tortoise conservation
In 2003, the Taipei Zoo was the first such organization worldwide to successfully breed the Burmese star tortoise in captivity. In 2008, the zoo saw a huge boost to its numbers, with 26 adorable hatchlings added to its count. On September 16, 2009, the zoo inked an accord with the Behler Chelonian Center to cooperate on the preservation of endangered species. The two institutions will work jointly on conservation activities, assisting in the return of the tortoises to the wild.

The Burmese star tortoise is a rare species from Asia; its only habitat is coastal river jungles near Rangoon. Due to long-term upheaval caused by war on the Indo-China peninsula, the habitat of the species is under serious threat, and its numbers have declined sharply, to the point where it has been listed as the sixth endangered chelonian species in the world. Despite the protections it now enjoys, its reproductive rate has remained low.

Yeh Chieh-sheng, head of the Taipei Zoo, says that the tortoises lay between 80 and 100 eggs per year, but only 1 or 2 hatchlings typically survive. In 2008, with assistance from the Behler Chelonian Center, the zoo improved the climactic conditions in its turtle habitat, adjusting the humidity and temperature to more closely resemble that of Burma. At the same time, the zoo also slowed its hatching techniques. The institution's efforts were amply rewarded with the successful hatching of 26 young tortoises.

Yeh says too that the accord recently concluded by the zoo will see increased cooperation between the two sides in reproductive technology, individual exchanges, diversification of genetic pools for endangered species, and other areas of research. These efforts will establish a multi-national relationship and a model for cooperation in conservation, with the ultimate goal being to return the star tortoises to their native environment.

City project breathes new life into cloth market
The Taipei City Office of Commerce is currently assisting the city's former cloth district in reinventing itself for the new century, bringing in designers and creative educational platforms. The Chiapo Nijung company has been set up as the first model store. Owner Su Chang-chin, who has 30 years of experience in the business, says that the company used to focus on sales of fabric for uniforms, but as demand declined, the industry is no longer a seller's market. Today, the company has adopted a "cloth art" platform to remain competitive. The firm now provides classes, brings in creative designers, and offers free consultations about cloth. The new initiatives have breathed new life into the faltering business.

With NT$3,000 a restaurant can change its look and present different atmospheres based on their particular clientele. Fabric is an easily changeable basis for decorating a home or store. It is not only cost effective, the resulting look is also clean and simple, and it can easily be done as a DIY project at home.

Designer Li Wen-chi gives the example of one Western restaurant that was originally decorated in cool colors with earth tones. That was fine given that their customers were largely white-collar workers and families. However, when the restaurant was reserved for a party, a corporate function or a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration, different interior materials and colors were needed to pep the place up. The restaurant now changes its tablecloths, chair covers and so on, puts a new cloth jacket on the menus, and adds a little color to accent pieces such as scarves or accessories to employee uniforms. In a short time, a completely new look is created for a custom event.

On September 16, Li demonstrated the decorating technique by creating a "Single Girls' Party" décor for an imaginary party reserving a private room in a restaurant. The cost for transforming the room ran less than NT$3,000, and literally thousands of types and patterns of cloth can be had in the Youhua Street area at an average cost of about NT$60 per meter. Even including labor costs, a chair cover came in at less than NT$150 custom-made, and pre-made types are available for even less for those for whom budget is a major consideration.

Old Bopiliao in Taipei sheds light on another era
What is referred to as Bopiliao Old Street today is actually Kangding Road, Lane 173 in Wanhua, one of the oldest districts in Taipei City. Framed on the southern side of Laosong Elementary School, as well as Kangding Road, Guangzhou Street, and Kunming Street, the Bopiliao Street area is dripping with 200 years of history starting all the way back in the Qing Dynasty, running through the Japanese occupation to the post-WWII period after the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan from mainland China. It is the most intact street within the previously walled city of Taipei from the Qing Dynasty.

Mi Fu-kuo, an architectural scholar, says Bopiliao was an important area during the Qing Dynasty from which lumber shipped to Taiwan from Fuzhou in southern mainland China was sent to be stripped of bark before distribution. This is where the area's name derives from, since "bopi" literally means peeling off bark. The old buildings along the street also feature southern Chinese style arcades. During the Japanese occupation, new streets were created in a more orderly pattern, and on the southern end of the area a new roadway was opened, known today as Guangzhou Street. What resulted was a rare situation of a row of buildings bordered by streets on both sides.

At the time, many stores thrived in the area and were critical to the wellbeing of the people. For instance, the "Sun Book Company", a printer and book-binding factory, bound books with thread in a traditional way. This business contracted out its work to many families in the area. The Weiling Altar, referred to more colloquially as Shihgonggui, is a place where shamans exerted their power to expel demons from ill children brought in by their parents. Meanwhile, at the intersection of Kangding Road and Guangzhou Street are many businesses selling coal and wood charcoal, henceforth giving the area the name "charcoal market."

The movie Monga (Wanhua District pronounced in Minnan dialect) filmed in the area portrayed parts of the local streetscapes in the 1980s. Although it didn't restore the entire Bopiliao Old Street area, it did bring back some famous old enterprises in the area such as the Xiuying Tea Shop, the Rixiang Travel Service, and the Fengxiang Baths. While the younger generation looks upon the scene set up for the movie as having an Old World flavor; it was unreal for the older locals.

Mrs. Yeh once lived along Bopiliao Street. She missed the place where she grew up and wanted her son to see the remains of the area, but she discovered that things were totally different with many stores being changed, she said. She complained that the architectural structures in the area have not been well preserved and the street has been turned into a folk culture village.

The Taipei City Government's Department of Cultural Affairs said that after undergoing renovation, the Bopiliao Old Street will become a special arts and culture zone. Hopes are that a larger number of culture-related enterprises can be attracted to the area, which can also be rented out for scenes in movies or television shows. The current exhibit of "mixed arts" held in the area is another manifestation the renovation aimed at injecting a new life into this historic space.

H1N1 prompts school to hold commencement via intercom
With the new strain of flu continuing to spread, Kangning Elementary School in Taipei decided to use a school-wide public broadcasting system to hold its opening ceremony rather than gathering students in a public place. A high-tech video feed allowed a live broadcast of the event to each classroom to allow the students to participate in the ceremony. The school also delivered messages concerning flu prevention.

School Principal Lian Te-sheng says that how much students and faculty know about the flu determines the success or failure of a prevention program. Using video conferencing avoided cramming students cheek–to-jowl in the auditorium, reducing the probability of such close contact between students and lowering the chances of infection.

Faculty committee president Hen Shu-ting says, "The children think the video conferencing is very interesting. We are using this opportunity to educate them about the flu, and because of the unique delivery method, the kids are paying even more attention, so the program is very successful." Quite a few of the children were curious about the new format for the year's opening ceremony and "when they turned on the TV and could see and hear everything so clearly, they really loved the new way of holding the ceremony!" says Hen.

The school is taking many preventive measures, such as having students and teachers wear clinical masks, wash hands frequently and thoroughly, and voluntarily and quickly report any changes to their physical well-being. These were all introduced via videoconferencing, taking advantage of the kids' excitement about the new medium to get a very important message through to them.

Elderly woman bids farewell to her beloved sewing machine
"Goodbye, my beloved sewing machine." Jin Feng-yi looks at the sewing machine and the large collection of umbrellas that have been with her most of her life. These items, along with other tools, have been loaded onto a truck and are being transported to Zhongzheng Community College in Taipei. Jin Feng says, "It feels as if I am giving my daughter away when she gets married. I hope that the new owner of these things will treat them dearly." She stands in the alleyway and waves goodbye to the truck that slowly heads away.

Jin is 70 years old and entirely blind in her left eye. Thirty years ago, she picked up a broken umbrella on Yangmingshan. "I figured that people who went around collecting junk for their recycling value would only want the metal skeleton of the umbrella. They would toss out the fabric used for the umbrella. This was not only wasteful, but also polluted the environment," she said. Jin said used the material to create back packs, making what become environmentally friendly "Jin Feng bags" that became quite the hot item. It is because of this that she started to be referred to as "Green Auntie."

Two years ago, Jin Feng-yi asked her daughter to buy a computer for her. She started to learn how to type Chinese and then she created her own blog, sharing with others how to make environmentally friendly back packs.

Jin's daughter, Tang Shu-yu, described her mother, who is blood type A and a Virgo, as intelligent and independent. "My grandmother was a child wife, who was bought into the family. Mother was born after her due date. In addition to being a late delivery, she contracted some viruses shortly after birth. She was born with poor sight in her left eye. When he was 18 years old, my grandfather was not happy with the meal that she had prepared for him and he struck her across her face. At this early age, she lost total sight in her left eye," Tang explained.

Tang Shu-yu said that after her mother graduated from elementary school she began learning the trade of sewing. The money she earned from her work was given to her little brother for his educational expenses and to buy various things. "My uncle ended up earning a doctorate in agronomy. He became an expert on Taiwan in the study of braconids," she says.

As things turned out, Jin Feng-yi married a man who came to Taiwan from mainland China in 1949. Prior to retiring, the man worked at the National Security Bureau. He had a deep fondness for his friends and he ended up spending all of his salary on helping out his friends in the army who he came to Taiwan with. Jin Feng-yi ended up working three different jobs to raise four children. The two sons in the household presently work as civil servants, and Tang Shu-yu graduated from National Taiwan University. Tang Shu-yu says, "Mother has made sacrifices her entire life for the welfare of others. After giving away her eldest daughter (her beloved sewing machine), we hope that she will do what she wants to do."

Since Jin Feng-yi's vision is getting worse, she decided to give her sewing machine and her collection of umbrella fabrics to the community college, hoping that this will provide some momentum to classes in environmental friendliness, which will get underway soon at the college. Meanwhile, Jin plans to begin realizing her dream of doing some traveling.

Taipei to hold triathlon for visually impaired youth
The 2009 Deaflympics will be held in Taipei from September 5 until September 15. The Taipei City Government's Sports Office and Standard Chartered Bank are jointly holding a triathlon for visually handicapped youngsters on August 23 at the city's Neihu Sports Center. A mass pledge was held on July 21 to spur visually impaired students' interest in participating in the competition, which will involve running, bicycling and swimming.

Two brothers, Lin Xin-wei and Lin Zheng-yu, both born almost totally blind, have been designated as the spokesmen for the event. The brothers are in the first year of high school and the third year of junior high school, respectively, and began learning how to swim at the ages of six and seven. Over the past several years, the two boys have won countless awards; they found self-confidence in the pool. Just last week, they received the Education Award from President Ma Ying-jeou.

The visually handicapped athletes frequently end up bumping into the side of the pool when they are swimming. As a result, it is not uncommon for them to sustain injuries. Coaches must use a bamboo rod with a PET plastic bottle attached to the end to tap the swimmers on the head, reminding them that they are five meters from the end of the pool and that they should get ready to turn around.

This was also a frustrating process for the two brothers when they first started swimming. Since they could not see anything, and it is impossible to hear when your head is under water, they frequently hit their heads against the side of the pool, making it not the most comfortable activity for them. However, with a coach by their side, they no longer had to worry about such things. As such, they attribute their outstanding performance in the pool to their coach, Chen Lun-zhung, who said that the two brothers' physical handicap has actually served to spark them to exert themselves to the best of their potential, thereby creating unlimited possibilities for them.

Swimming aside, the visually impaired athletes in the triathlon will also ride bicycles and run. In each of the three events, volunteer helpers will be there to ride tandem bikes and lead the contestants with a rope in completing the running portion of the competition. The sponsors are looking for 100 volunteers to help out at the event.

Restaurant's Mormon proprietor tastes alcohol without swallowing
One of Taipei's best-known Shanghai cuisine restaurants is run by an alcohol-free Mormon who seldom eats meat. However, the restaurant does offer alcohol and all sorts of meats to its customers like any other eatery. The special assistant to the general manager, Chris Kelsey, an American who previously spent two years in Taiwan as a missionary for the Mormon Church, is extremely polite, bowing constantly to customers as they complete their meal and leave the restaurant. He says that one of the most frequent questions he encounters is whether he has multiple wives.

Established in 1987, Tau Tau Shanghai Restaurant was originally located on Zhongshan North Road, and was favored by political and business figures, as well as Japanese years ago. The restaurant closed its doors in 1993, but was brought back to business in August of 2008 by its original maitre d'hotel, Jian Jing, on Jilin Road with the same name.

Interestingly enough, Jian Jing, the general manager and proprietor of the restaurant, and about one fourth of her employees are Mormons, including the 27-year-old Arizonan Kelsey, who fell in love with Taiwan when he first came here. He switched his major from architecture to Chinese, and in the beginning of last year flew back to Taiwan on a one-way plane ticket to show his determination to settle down and work here. Kelsey understands food well, and, as such, he was asked by Jian Jing, a fellow Mormon, to work at the restaurant.

Fluent in Japanese, the 48-year-old Jian Jing adopted the Mormon faith at 18, saying that she does not smoke, drink alcohol, tea or coffee, and abides by the religious precepts of the church. Jian says she does not eat much meat or seafood either. Nonetheless, in order to meet the needs of the restaurant's customers, she took a class to learn about the different types of wine and liquor, as well as gathering knowledge about which type of wine or liquor is most appropriate for certain foods. While she will taste the wines, she never swallows them.

"Customers who store bottles of wine or liquor in the restaurant can rest assured that the alcohol is safe and it will not be drunk by the staff!" jokes Kelsey. He says that foreigners are constantly approached with various questions by locals, saying that when some customers toast him or invite him to a glass of alcohol, he will take advantage of the opportunity to promote Mormonism, making everyone to understand that Mormons do not drink alcohol. He also works to dispel the perception among many that Mormons engage in polygamy, in which men take many wives.

"I will not go out of my way to preach while in the restaurant. However, I will encourage other employees to follow the dietary rules of the Mormon faith," he says. Kelsey adds that sometimes he will caution patrons not to drink too much liquor. Having worked in the food and beverage industry for many years, Jian Jing says she puts a heavy emphasis on the use of vegetables in season. She also uses a large amount of organic foods that she transports in from her home of Yilan in northeastern Taiwan. Jian does not encourage customers to order shark fins or bird's nests. "After all, you cannot just think about making money. You can’t run a restaurant at the expense of the ecosystem," Jian says.

Tianmu to offer treats and deals in food festival
Located in northern Taipei, the Tianmu Marketplace is a great place to sample the taste of many exotic restaurants. June 20 and 21 will mark the first-ever zone-wide exhibition, with 41 restaurants setting up stands to provide great food from nine different regions. For just NT$1, visitors can taste all sorts of great dishes.

The Tianmu Marketplace Development Association and the Taipei City Office of Commerce have teamed up to sponsor a two-day event, the "Specialty Stores and Foreign Food Exhibition" on June 20 and 21 from 12 noon to 9 p.m. The restaurants represented will offer dishes from Britain, France, Italy, Mexico, Indonesia, the Middle East, Hong Kong and Japan.

Restaurant owner Chen Pin-shen of "Beigang Meat Congee" says that he will offer 200 portions of congee for just NT$1 over the course of the two-day event. Those who miss out on that offer can enjoy a 10% discount at the shop, and those showing a ticket stub from the Tianmu Baseball Stadium for either day will get 20% off their orders.

The Mexican restaurant "El Gallo"will be on hand with Mexican tacos, again with 200 portions available over the weekend. There will also be chances to sample Korean noodles and Hong Kong specialties for just NT$1.

To attract people to the event, the Big Train clothing store, which specializes in large sizes, will be offering posters of artist Luo Chi-hsiang, a designer jeans spokesman. The Mentor hair studio chain will also treat 30 customers to NT$100 haircuts.

The association says that all 41 restaurants will be offering samples of their dishes as well as discounts ranging from 10 to 50% off their regular prices. Patrons may show a "Tianmu Marketplace Discount Book" to enjoy special prices at the restaurants.

The Taipei City Office of Commerce will provide rental information about some 57 vacant storefronts for rent in the zone. Information of entrepreneurship classes and business startup loans will also be available during the weekend.

Businessman rises from ashes via door-to-door sales
Chiu Ah-fa started a lighter business over 30 years ago and lost NT$40 million (US$1,225,565 in 1997) at 45 years of age. Today, at 67, he owns four retail outlets in Dazhi, Neihu and other areas in Taipei selling various wares; the largest one is a 300-ping (991.737 square-metered) wholesale store with 40 employees, located in the commercial district just north of the Taipei train station. Monthly revenues generated by his stores top NT$2 million.

After the failure, Chiu started working in a necklaces and hair accessories factory, and his hands were covered with calluses after a couple of years. At night, he kept on working for another five hours selling products door to door. He says that he started anew, carrying a suitcase full of goods around. Each evening, he lugged the suitcase along with his daughter to residences and stores. Their trips covered both street stalls as well as stores from the Gongguan area in the southern part of Taipei all the way to the Shilin night market in the north. If they were able to sell NT$5,000 of accessories in one evening, they would go home happy and sleep well.

Chiu says that they had this kind of life for about two years before he was able to open his first store with his savings. "At that time, all I sought was to have adequate clothing and food for my family, and be able to support my wife and children. I never thought that I would end up becoming a boss," he says.

Chiu says that, although it is stressful being unemployed as a middle-aged person, one should never lose one's determination, and it is never too late to start over. He encourages others who are encountering the similar predicament that he faced to do the same. Chiu says that the right attitude and being willing to work hard are more important than having an enormous amount of capital to start up a business. "In fact, one could ultimately found a successful business with only a few thousand NT," he says.

College students' graduation projects acclaimed on display
Several students at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology have won accolades with their invention of using light effects to create a slightly drunken feeling. Yang Jia-hao and Zheng Bo-fan placed an acrylic bar in front of an infrared camera. The camera was programmed to detect the placement of glasses on the bar. After further processing by the computer of the images, a projector was used to project seemingly hallucinatory images. The invention has created a new interpretation of interpersonal relationships and the interaction of various items.

The university's Department of Industrial and Commercial Design held its graduation exhibition starting April 27. The graduation projects on display provide a window into the creativity and innovation of the students. Liao Geng-min and Yen Xuan-yi cooperated on a project to use onions to create an umbrella in the form of an onion. They also made "meat books," having been inspired by the look of pork bellies, and created bowls in the form of cabbage, as well as pocket books that look like kitchen cleavers. All of these items reflect items used in a Taiwanese kitchen.

Another student, Huang Pin-zhen designed a series of collapsible articles to be hung on the side of a bicycle, including chairs, cushions and tents. Huang's inventions make it possible for bicyclists to stop wherever they want and have a simple chair to sit on.

Huang Xin-ya used over 20 discarded tires from bicycles, motorcycles, automobiles and vans to design three different styles of "tire bags." The packs are both durable and environmentally friendly. Huang canvassed along Roosevelt Road and Keelung Road, looking for automobile and motorcycle repair and maintenance outlets, seeking out discarded tires from them free of charge. She then used a band saw that was available in the university's workshop, sawing the tires into quarters and completed the series of bags in a matter of months.

Convenience store employees face the world with 24-hour smiles
"Will that be another medium latte, no sugar for you today?" The convenience store employee sounds like the customer's friend as she shows her understanding of the person's preferences. Standing in the storefront a short distance from Taipei 101, amid the hustle and bustle of the area, most customers here are local residents and working folks from nearby offices. Some customers come here three or more times daily, for breakfast, lunch or afternoon tea, or maybe a lunchbox before starting an overtime shift. Many are here more than they are in their own kitchens cooking.

Taipei residents find it impossible to imagine life without convenience stores. Here you can buy the newspaper, coffee, and a lunchbox, get a hot meal or make photocopies and send faxes. You can also get concert tickets, pay your utility bills, take care of parking fines and even pay your credit card bills. All these transactions crowd into the tiny space of this establishment.

But as the customers are thronging around for convenience, the employees must do the same things over and over again, all day, every day. Patrol the store, straighten up the shelves, watch the refrigerator case temperatures and restock. The minute customers come in the door, they expect to be checked out rapidly, and cannot be kept waiting. Then it's back to the straightening up, restocking and maybe changing the cash register's tape rolls. Without enthusiasm and dedication, it's impossible to stand up to this endless sameness day in and day out.

Store manager Lin Hsiao-liang began working here at age 16. Today, after 18 years, he has risen from his first job as a lowly work-study clerk to the manager of three such stores. Lin says that the service sector emphasizes employee attitudes. Because the employees are interacting with several hundred people a day and handling thousands of products, if they can't be positive and outgoing, they will seem like robots, mechanically chanting "Welcome to the store" and "Thanks for your patronage" as customers come in and out, as is the custom in Taiwan.

Lin says: "Employees who smile without meaning it, or who have dour faces, make the customers feel like they might as well buy their drinks from a vending machine. Why walk into the store in that case?" Lin believes that with over 10,000 convenience stores in Taiwan selling similar products, the competition is fierce. As such, only through the quality of its customer service can a store differentiate itself and therefore keep customers coming back.

Taiwanese convenience stores' services have become increasingly diverse in recent years. Ringing up orders and manning the cash register aside, employees today have to run the in-store fax and copy machine for customers as well.

During peak periods, they also have to work on store promotions and keep track of all the sales mandated by the central office. Employees have to move fast and think clearly; otherwise they might irritate the customers by messing up the sales price or the free gift.

Facing such a diverse job with such high pressure, don't most employees soon burn out? Lin says: "Customers might get tired of buying a cup of coffee here every day, and some employees, too, would feel the same way about pushing the button to dispense it every day." He believes that taking the attitude that the diverse duties expected of them are a way to have "fresh variety each day" is a way to keep the customers feeling good about the store. The workers also have a chance to earn scholarships, and if they focus on appreciating the joy of life through their interactions with customers, their work will not seem boring.

Noted musician teaches yue chin to popularize the traditional instrument
If you saw the hit film "Cape No. 7," you may recall the scenes in which Uncle Mao was sitting at the entrance to his home playing the "yue chin," a traditional local stringed instrument kind of like a guitar, and singing. The popularity of the film caused a sudden rush among many people to learn how to play the yue chin. Chen Ming-chang, a well-known local musician, did not want to let Uncle Mao monopolize the limelight. On the quiet, Chen began offering free classes in the yue chin in the Beitou district of Taipei. The classes even attracted several foreigners. The unlikely result has been that the yue chin has served as a means to promote people to people diplomacy.

Chen Chang-sheng, the head of the Changan neighborhood in the Beitou district of the city, said that the Beitou-raised Chen Ming-chang felt it was his duty to come and help provide instruction upon hearing that a yue chin class would be held in the neighborhood. Chen Chang-sheng said that "Cape No. 7" triggered a huge interest in traditional musical instruments. As such, Chen Ming-chang's yue chin class attracted quite a few people, including children and foreign nationals from France and the U.S. A local man even makes the trip to the class each week all the way from Hsinchu (some 80 kilometers south of Taipei.)

An American student in the class, Ben, currently also studying guitar with Chen Ming-chang, is able to play the yue chin and sing a Taiwanese folk song at the same time. Ben said that he came to Taiwan nine years ago to study Chen Ming-chang's folk music as well as Huang Chun-ming's fiction; he has a special interest in traditional culture here.

Ben laughed when he said that if one does not understand the soul of the yue chin, it is impossible to write a good research thesis on the instrument. In referring to himself, Ben said that this was the reason that he decided to take the plunge to study the instrument. He said that while the yue chin has only two strings, it is really an amazing instrument for being able to produce a variety of music that is every bit as diverse as that of the guitar. He hopes to group up with other foreigners to play traditional local instruments in the future.

Meanwhile, the 45-year-old Chen Tsan-lang said that he does not mind making the special trip (from Hsinchu) to Taipei every Thursday evening to study the yue chin. He said that while young people love learning Western instruments like the piano, the violin and the guitar, it is important to pass along the skills of traditional local instruments to next generation.

Chen Tsan-lang has been learning the yue chin for nearly a year. Starting from scratch, Chen is now able to play and sing 10 songs. He said that if one has the will to learn, one will then be able to make it. Chen said his dream is to be able to support his round- Taiwan trip by making money from playing a yue chin.

Young rap artist builds a fan base
Even though "Husky" is unable to distinguish between "en" and "eng" sounds, the 23-year-old rap music lover has pursued his dream to be a street performer. Husky invented a name for himself in the Ximending district of Taipei, the center of youth activities, trendy stores and entertainment venues. When performing, Husky avoids using dirty language, which helped him gain a wider audience who rejected cuss words. His style became known as the "Husky style" of rap.

Husky's real name is Liu Hsiang-ning, recently graduated from Tungnan University. He first came into contact with rap when he was a student at a five-year technical school. Last year, he obtained a license to perform as a street artist. He performs in Ximending on weekends and holidays with impromptu performances and interacting with the audience. When he sees audience members wearing flip-flops or holding beverages in their hands, he will include these details into his lyrics. He also asks the audience questions and has them shout out words, which he then strings together into rap. His talent is without peer in the area.

Besides his interest in rap, Husky usually spends an enormous amount of time honing his skills and doing his homework. He has to be familiar with daily events to avoid embarrassing situations. Last year when someone in the audience shouted out the words "Lehman Brothers" (an American financial institution that went bankrupt last year in the wake of the sub-prime loan crisis), Husky misunderstood as the name to mean somebody's relatives. Husky frequently breaks out into rap without realizing it when he is driving around or walking through the streets. His lyrics often urge young people not to spend too much time on the Internet, saying that they should work to pursue their dreams instead. Resentment toward the world and cynicism have no place in his rap lyrics, Husky says.

Husky says that he got his nickname from friends, who say that he looks like that breed of dog. Also equipped with a larger tongue, when speaking, his tongue frequently gets in the way, and he ends up biting it. When Husky took music classes in elementary school, he had no idea that he would grow up to be a rap artist

"You'll never achieve your dreams if all you do is talk. You have to do it!" Husky says. He hopes that one day he will be able to produce his own record. He says that more people have a chance to come in contact with rap through his street performances. As more people enjoy his music, he is moving closer to fulfilling his dream.

MRT staff mans the tracks while you sleep
The Taipei mass rapid transit system has 70 stations along its 75.8 kilometers of track, covering both underground and elevated areas. In 2008, the system carried an average of 1.23 million people each day, making track maintenance a necessary routine that allows no room for error. The maintenance staff's only mission is to make the track work, or else. As such, they are under an enormous amount of pressure, both psychologically and physically.

Hsu Shun-yung says that in the early stages after the subway system began operations, the workers did not have mobile cranes to use, leaving them no choice but to carry hundreds of kilograms of steel track required for the repair to the exact place. But, after flash butt welding cars and other automated and mechanized equipment were brought in to help in the last few years, the degree of difficulties was lowered and efficiency heightened.

Nonetheless, machinery is still machinery. It can break down, and at the end of the day there are many things that simply require manpower and special techniques to get done. One of these is Thermit welding, which Hsu Shun-yung says he has been done over 100 times. He also says that an experienced track welder is able to determine immediately if the track has been welded smoothly by taking one look at it. The Thermit welding technology is one of the most important techniques that he wants to pass down to his colleagues.

"Track maintenance personnel must show a lot of dedication to their work," says Hsu, who has been involved in the maintaining and repair of tracks for nearly 10 years. He says that many new employees are not interested in this work since there is quite a lot of time pressure, and they have to work at night. Some of them are also scared of using various welding machinery or taking on hard work. Nevertheless, Hsu encourages them to see this work as an unforgettable learning opportunity and experience that surpass their expectation from an ideal or interested job.

Hsu admits that with the work schedule the opposite of most, workers have to cherish the limited amounts of time that they have with their families. One time, when he and his family went on a long-expected outing, Hsu was summoned back to Taipei to carry out emergency repair work. In the eyes of the track maintenance personnel, making sure the rapid transit system delivers passengers safely is more precious than the time they spend with their families.

Hsu says that his being able to give an undivided attention to his work over the years is only because of the support and understanding of his family. When they take the subway system together, his children will use an adult's tone of speech in pointing to the trains and saying, "Dad, this is fruit of all of your work!" This one short sentence is enough to make him feel proud for a long time, he says.

Septuagenarian teaches yoga moves that cured her daughter
Seventy-year old Chao Mei-fang has been doing yoga over 30 years; she is spritely, flexible, and does all manner of yoga routines on a regular basis. In fact, it has done her so much good that many men compliment her on her beauty, even at her age.

"Well, I really started doing yoga to save my daughter. Looking good is just a bonus!" says Chao. Her daughter, Chao Hsin-ju, contracted rheumatoid arthritis thirty years ago, and both her legs became stiff and painful. At the time, the doctors just said, "There's no cure." But neither mother nor daughter took the matter very seriously. One day they saw a TV show on which author Hsing Lin-tzu, who had the same problem, and noted the twisted joints. Seeing the results made them realize how serious a disease Hsin-ju was facing.

Mei-fang decided that it made no sense to just sit around and wait for the worst. Seeing how supple the bodies of the people doing yoga at the National Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, she determined to save her daughter through exercise. The mother set to learning circle dances, tai-chi, and even traveled to Japan and India to study yoga, and set about teaching everything to her daughter.

Fifteen years went by, and each day the mother got up early to lead Hsin-ju in yoga routines, then spent three hours a day giving her acupressure massage. Hsin-ju was in such pain that she often cried, but she kept it up day after day. And the arthritis came back under control, with her inflammation indices dropping markedly.

Chao Mei-fang had been a beautician previously, doing makeup for many famous stars. She had also been a competitor in singing contests, and placed high in company with well-known singers of the day.

Mei-fang has continued to do yoga and tai-chi, and says there is no age limit to either activity. In fact, her teacher, Hua Shu-chun, was 93 when he died, and was still teaching yoga to the end. When media reports of an elderly lady who had fallen down and been severely injured while doing yoga, Mei-fang said that the woman probably was not doing it correctly. She suggests that elderly people who want to get into yoga should progress slowly and make sure to do some simple warm-up exercises first. There is no need to make it a competition or insist on doing the most difficult moves to get the benefits of yoga.

Historic Taipei buildings made into relaxing venues
Taipei is full of interesting coffee shops and restaurants. Every once in a while, however, you will find truly unique establishments. Inevitably, businesses operating in these historical venues offer visitors a feeling of returning to the past.

Nowadays, Taipei's subway can easily take you to many historical buildings. Some of these areas feature elegant surroundings and unique restaurants. Near the subway's Ximen Station, the Dingxi Tea House in the Red House Theater complex and Fortress Coffee on the second floor of Zhongshan Hall are within a few minutes' walk. Near Zhongshan Station is the famous Spot Coffee (located inside the former U.S. Ambassador's residency.) Taking the Danshui subway line further northward to the Shuanglian Station will lead you to the Dance Coffee Shop situated inside the Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Research Institute. Further north, near Yuanshan Station, is the Taipei Story House's Story Tea House, located inside a European-styled villa build in 1914 by a wealthy Taiwanese tea merchant. All of these places are wonderful sports to spend an afternoon.

The Story Tea House, run by the Landis Taipei Hotel, features outstanding food and service, including signature hotel dishes such as Alsace sauerkraut and pig's feet and Dongpo Pork. During the weekends, live music is featured in the square outside. Visitors must buy a ticket for entrance, and they can browse through the historical site before settling down for a meal.

Fortress Coffee inside the Zhongshan Hall, finished in 1936 as the Taipei City Hall during the Japanese occupation, is a favorite hangout for the elderly as well as people who work in the area. Senior citizens particularly like to visit this coffee house for nostalgic reasons. The Dance Coffee Shop operated by the Tsai Jui-yueh Dance Research Institute is a good place for parents to take their children to during the weekend, because when parents are enjoying a cup of tea or coffee, they can also watch the kids romping around on the lawn within the shop's enclave.

The owners of the Dingxi Tea House inside the Red House Theater (originally a market building completed in 1908) especially like the low-key elegance that permeated many places in Taipei decades ago. As such, the interior of the teahouse, with sofas, tables and lighting fixtures, and the food and beverages, all feature the atmosphere of Taipei in the late 1930s. The teahouse has a cooperative arrangement with a tea plantation in Nantou County. Tea is blended with wine, creating a special Wulong tea wine that has become quite popular among patrons. On weekend evenings, after the Red House Theater closes for the night, the teahouse starts playing 78 rpm records from decades ago. This has become a favorite spot for fans of old music to come and enjoy the atmosphere.

Another interesting historical place in Taipei is Taiwan's first beer factory, the Jianguo Beer Factory. Opened in 1919 and still producing draft beer, this place is a living relic. In recent years, the factory has been transformed into a beer-themed leisure and recreation park. The Taiwan Beer Company has also opened the 346 Warehouse Restaurant. This eatery offers beer, a range of stir-fried dishes and various barbecued items. At night on the weekends, live bands crank out tunes, creating a festive environment.

Open-air teahouse entertained Taipei residents with television
In the 1950s, the western part of Taipei was home to an open-air teashop called the "Riverside Village". In its early days, it attracted singing stars to perform, and opened up a new and prosperous page in the history of the areas along the Danshui River. It was also the forerunner of later music halls. Today, although the establishment is long gone, it is still possible to enjoy the simple pleasure of sitting along the riverbank, sipping tea and listening to music.

The stretch of Kuilin Road where it runs into Huanhe South Road in Taipei is the site of the current Sanching Temple, situated next to a park. This entire area was once within the old Riverside Village. In the "Taipei Guide" published in 1953, it was featured as an important city destination, on par with the Presidential Palace.

Chun Sheng-po recalls that life was hard in those days, and there was not much available for entertainment. A few bamboo shelters erected on the riverbank, singers were hired, and music groups took the stage, providing people with an opportunity to chat, drink tea, and enjoy the shows. This developed almost accidentally into a trend toward "open-air concerts". In their heyday, the fun extended as far as Jiangzicui in Banqiao, with some 20 establishments welcoming customers.

Chun says that in reality, no money was earned on these concerts, because the minute there was a storm, no one would show up to listen. It was not until the age of television and he was able to buy a few of the first batch of Toshiba television sets on the market did business start to pick up.

At the time, all the singing stars wanted to be on television. When major events occurred, such as Armstrong walking on the moon or a Little League world championship, the store would be crammed with people, and the 200 available seats were not nearly enough for everyone.

Recalling how hospitable his grandfather was, "It was free to watch the television. Only the tea cost money," Huang says. Neighbors from the area liked to come in; old soldiers from the Mainland would visit the place to listen to nostalgic songs to sooth their homesickness. The crowd rang with the sounds of many different accents, and the atmosphere was lively.

As television became more common, however, and music halls caught on, the riverside teashops' business gradually died down. In 1994, the Riverside Village was expropriated and turned into a park in accordance with the municipal development plan, and no longer exists.

Zhongshan North Road a microcosm of foreign cultures
All along Taipei's Zhongshan North Road are international five-star hotels and stores with name brands from throughout the world. However, many people may not realize that the street is filled with vestiges of the Japanese occupation, and American military aid, in addition to the activities of current South East Asia immigrants. From the Japanese occupation all the way to today, the 'Tiaotung' commercial district along Zhongshan North Road remains home to countless Japanese restaurants where Japanese culture can be seen. Meanwhile, its Shuangcheng commercial district offers reminders of the American soldiers' drinking culture that became established when they were stationed in Taiwan. Today, Zhongshan North Road is also home to a number of grocers selling Southeast Asia foods and is also home to churches that attract hoards of local Philippine laborers on their vacation days.

Zhongshan North Road was first constructed during the Japanese occupation, before WWII to enable Japanese to pay their respects at the Yuanshan Shrine, which was located where the Grand Hotel sits today. Presently, the area that stretches from east of Zhongshan North Road, west of Xinsheng North Road, South of Nanjing East Road and north of Civic Boulevard was the administrative zone during the period of Japanese rule called "Tacheng Ting" and included dormitories for administrative officials. It was then considered a high-end residential district where Japanese government officials and well-off Taiwanese lived. Trade began to flourish between Taiwan and Japan in the 1960s. In order to attract Japanese businessmen, many clubs and Japanese style bars opened up in the area. Over time, the area became known as the Tiaotung commercial district.

Wang Ming-ming, the chief of the Chengyi neighborhood in the Zhongshan District, said that the Chinese characters for "Tiaotung" in Japanese mean "alleys and lanes," and the area was specially laid out based on the style of certain districts in traditional Japanese cities, thereby providing a place where the Japanese occupiers who were nostalgic for motherland could come. These days, the area's streets still have a strong Japanese flavor. In total, over 100 Japanese-style barbecue restaurants, restaurants serving Japanese cuisine and piano bars are located in this small commercial district, and signs in Japanese and Japanese-style storefronts are everywhere. The strong Japanese flavor of the area is behind the Taipei City government's plans to create a designated "Japan Street" in the area. Presently, plans are being laid out to create a place that focuses on barbecue restaurants. Officials hope that this will help drum up business for restaurant operators in the area.

Many older people here still remember that Zhongshan North Road used to be home to a group of 'strange women' living on doing business with American GIs stationed in Taiwan after WWII. The song 'Say yes, my boy' is about just such scenarios. In a matter of a few short years, countless pubs opened in the neighboring Shuangcheng Street area, making local business increasingly vibrant.A number of stores in the area started selling military supplies and the various goods that were given to American soldiers and officers as fringe benefits. As such, the Chingkuang Market located within the neighborhood became one of the earliest places in Taipei that sold foreign products, said Huang Chih-chang, the head of the Hengan neighborhood in the Zhongshan District, adding that in those days, some of the biggest entertainment stars could frequently be seen browsing through the local stores.

After the American military departed Taiwan, a number of half Caucasian, half Asian faces could be seen in the area. These children of mixed race did not speak English. A good number of these younger people who were born to American fathers and Chinese mothers had a hard time adapting during their adolescence. Many gradually moved away from the area. However, one thing that has not changed is that the area is still home to pub after pub. The commonly seen English signs are historical reminders of the time when the American soldiers crowded the streets here.

While footprints of the Japanese colonialists and the American soldiers still serve to lend insight to the area's past, Saint Christopher's Catholic Church, which was once a popular spot for American soldiers to worship, is now a popular place for laborers from the Philippines to pray on the weekends ever since Taiwan opened its doors to foreign laborers in recent years. In addition, a large number of grocers and other outlets have opened up in the area around the church selling various items from Southeast Asia. A number of restaurants have also opened to cater to the demand. This has created another center for a foreign culture in the Zhongshan North Road area.

Beach training pays off for Special Olympian
Lin Wen-hong is a ninth-grader at Chang'an Middle School in Taipei, and he has Down's Syndrome. In February, he represented Taiwan in participating in the Winter Special Olympics meet in the United States, competing in the "snowshoeing" event and bringing home two gold and one silver medal. Since Taiwan has no snow to practice on, Lin runs on the beach in the sand. Even when he falls, he grits his teeth and goes on, and the hard work has paid off for him.

Chang'an Middle School principal Kao Min-hui recognized Lin on Thursday, and the boy's parents were also on hand to enjoy his glory. Lin clutched his father's hand and occasionally made gestures at him. Lin's mother, Ouyang Liang-na, carried his snowshoes and said, standing off to one side: "He tends to stick with his dad."

Mr. Lin recalls how, when his son was born, he saw the doctor swallow heavily, and felt in his heart that his son would be somehow "different"His family determined to treat him just like any other boy. Since his youth, they took their son with them wherever they went, and had him learn the piano, how to play board games, play the harmonica, swim, and rollerblade.

Lin was introduced to the ROC Special Olympics when he was in seventh grade. In eighth grade, he was selected as a member of the snowshoeing team. The event required him to run on a snow surface wearing snowshoes. To increase his strength, Lin ran three laps of the school track each morning, rain or shine. At one point, he was ready to give up because of his falls, but his parents pulled out all the stops to comfort him and encourage him to go on. After two years of training, this year Lin won the world 100 and 200 meter gold medals and earned a silver medal in the 400 meter.

Lin's homeroom teacher, Pu Mian-sheng, says that Lin often helps children with cerebral palsy in the class learn to do things, and helps mobility-impaired children push their wheelchairs. According to his teacher, Lin is a happy and loving child.

Fruit and vegetable wholesale market insider shares early-morning world
It's 3:30 a.m. While most of the people in Taipei are deep in dreamland, the lights are already on at the Number One Fruit and Vegetable market located under the Huazhong Bridge in the city's Wanhua district. Even at this early hour, the area rings with the clamor of voices as sellers of fresh fruits and vegetables fill the sales area. One by one, their items are placed on shelves and prices set through an auction process. By the time the sun comes up, the products are ready to be shipped to retail establishments throughout Taipei.

"To sell fruit and vegetables, you need to keep the freshness, and the key is speed to market and volume of sales." Lai Chao-hsin has worked at the market for 23 years, working his way up from a job as a simple merchandise handler to one of the top auctioneers. Grabbing a knife, he looks at each item prior to the start of the sale. Each link of the trip from field to market is a race against the clock. "Auctioneers are in the service business. We help the farmers, but we also keep an eye out for the consumers as well."

"20...20...19...19..." The electronic auction clock's LCD display lights up, showing the price as it moves downward. The auctioneer constantly spits out numbers as buyers watch the figures slide toward the price they have in mind. At any time, they might reach out and grab a ticket, and after they have placed a winning bid, they have it stamped by the auctioneer to close the deal.

Today's market is far removed from the old days, when non-computerized auctions carried the potential for fraud. The electronic system used at the market these days means that the entire auction process is transparent, both the auctioneer's price calls and the bids by buyers. It takes only three or four seconds for a transaction to be completed.

The fruit and vegetable auction is based on "lots", with the quantity of each lot ranging from a few boxes to several hundred. This particular market takes in between 1500 and 2000 tons of fruits and vegetables each day, and over 5,000 lots of produce are sold and priced between the hours of 3:30 and 7 a.m. A top auctioneer like Lai, with years of experience, may move 80 tons of produce a day.

"People who aren't insiders often write these long articles about the price of product, but the reality is that they just don't understand the auction process," says Lai. "Take cabbage. On any one day, we bring in five or six varieties of cabbage. Some people don't understand things. They look on the board and see the lowest price and think it applies to all the different kinds."

Prices are decided largely by supply and demand, Lai says. The auctioneer plays several roles. They must deal with the buyers each day, but also take on front-line duties with regard to the hard-working farmers. "If things don't sell for a good price, we often have to play the role of a market analyst, sharing our experience with the growers." Produce prices bob up and down, and the farmers are not necessarily making a profit. For example, after a typhoon, the farmers have nothing to harvest, and although consumers cry about high prices, the farmers have it tough too.

Afternoon wet markets' popularity fights economic downturn
Despite the poor economy these days, consumers are still flocking to late afternoon markets, which have proven to be a rare bright spot. The Yungchun Market stands out in Taipei's eastern sector.Located near the Yungchun MRT stop on the Xinyi District's Hulin Street, the less-than-500 meter-long market is filled with housewives looking for a good bargain. They come from all directions, setting out to find reasonably priced fruits and vegetables, seafood, hot prepared foods and dried foods.

Along the street, the hawkers shout, "Everything is on sale! After we're sold out, we're heading off." Shortly after 4 p.m., while a bunch of middle aged and older women are sorting through the pocketbooks one hawker is selling next to the subway station, a continuous rush of people keep emerging from the station's escalators to head for the market. As the afternoon progresses, more and more working women wearing pant suits and high heels can be seen looking through the fresh fruit to find the best produce at a couple of fruit stands located on the other side of the street.

Miss Chang, who originally lived on the nearby Sungshan Road with her mother, says that although she moved to Banqiao in Taipei County after she got married, she still delights in frequently catching the subway to Yungchun Station in order to browse through the evening market here. She says that she can find everything she needs in one trip to the market. "After you have gotten off work for the day, one-stop shopping at the market will get everything you want, from fresh foods to cooked foods. There's no need to take something out of the freezer to thaw," she says, adding that goods are cheaper at the afternoon market by some 30-40% than those at the morning markets or the supermarkets. This is especially the case with fruit, she says. "In addition, the closer it gets to closing time, the cheaper the prices become. However, by the closing time you of course have a smaller selection from which to choose."

Meanwhile, Miss Lin, who lives a bit further away in the Donghu section of Taipei, is also a frequent visitor at the Yungchun Market. She admits that despite having a small family, she usually ends up buying too much at a supermarket and has to thrown some of it away. By going to the late afternoon market, which she calls an "open air hypermart," she can buy fruit and vegetables in one stop and she does not need to buy more than she needs. She adds that when she is feeling lazy and does not want to cook, she will simply buy half a prepared chicken and heat it up at home. "This place is really a heaven for housewives," she says.

NTU Hospital boasts new time-saving lab station for blood tests
National Taiwan University Hospital recently has added a second location in the hospital were adults can take blood tests. The move has helped to significantly reduce the amount of time that patients need to wait in line in order to have a blood test carried out on them. In the past, patients had to wait on average for about 30 minutes, but now with the new station, the time waiting in line has been cut to 17 minutes. In the future, administrators hope that they will be able to further reduce the amount of time required for patients to get their blood tested during the busiest hours in the morning. This will offer greater convenience to patients, helping to cut the amount of time they waste in line. On average, about 1,800 people need to get blood tests at National Taiwan University Hospital each day. In the past, there was only one station where people went to get pricked for blood. During the peak period, from the time of pulling a number to the time of finishing having blood taken would require that people mull about the station for some 50 or 60 minutes. In the event that there was a computer failure, the line would become even longer. The station faced a chronic situation of being overcrowded. As a result, the head of NTU Hospital, Chen Ming-feng, decided that upon the completion and opening of the new NTU Children’s Hospital building to add a new station for blood tests for adults as well as a new station for children. The director of the NTU Hospital’s Laboratory Medicine Department Jen Chiang-fu said that the hospital is presently engaging in cooperation with manufacturers of precision equipment. It has spent NT$400 million on renting automated testing computer equipment. In the future, this will help alleviate the situation of patients having to wait a long time in line to receive the paperwork regarding the blood tests that their doctors have called for. Under the latest plan, patients will only have to pick up a bar code and then they will take it to the counter of the laboratory where the technicians will swipe it. The identity of the patient and the test prescribed will immediately pop up on the screen. In addition, a state-of-the-art mechanical arm will help the technicians select the appropriate test tube required for the blood tests to be carried out. Without a doubt, getting children to take blood tests is much more difficult than for adults. Children have smaller blood vessels, fear being pricked by the needle and are prone to making a scene. NTU Hospital has specially delegated a lab technician and is making use of the panda theme, which is popular among children given the recent arrival of two panda bears in Taiwan from mainland China. The technician wears a panda hat when taking the blood of the children. The director of NTU Hospital’s General Laboratory Department Chu Su-yu said that having the technicians wear the panda hats helps to settle down the children and put them at ease, alleviating the pain when they are being pricked by the needle. Chu said that in the future the lab technicians will wear other hats based on the season. For instance, when it comes to Christmas time, they will wear Santa hats, Chu said.

Taipei hospital's cardiac surgery innovation earns overseas approval
Traditional aortic dissection surgery is apt to produce tears in tissues during the process of suturing the man-made artery to the natural. As a result, Taipei's Chen Hsing Rehabilitation Medical Center has developed a sort of "artificial vessel connector", the use of which stabilizes the soft ends of the artificial vessel before the aorta end is inserted. After that, a clip is used to bind the two together, without the use of any stitches.

Chen Hsing Rehabilitation Medical Center has used this technique on 19 patients thus far. The invention also marks the first time a home-grown Taiwanese invention has obtained US FDA approval as a medical device. Not only does the invention greatly increase survival rates, it also provides greater convenience for the surgeon.

Director Wei Cheng of its Cardiac Medicine Center says that arterial dissections happen frequently during seasons when the temperature drops rapidly, since blood pressure can rise suddenly without warning, causing ruptures of the membranes within blood vessels. Once the arterial dissection occurs, many pathological changes begin, which can be life-threatening in most cases. In recent years, with advances in medicine, death rates from surgery to correct the condition have run about 30%, making this the cardiac surgeon's nightmare.

Wei says that traditional surgery for this condition uses suturing of the aorta, inserting an artificial section. However, after the dissection, tissue is very weak, and the use of sutures is very apt to create tears or bleeding at the suture site. This leads to hemorrhaging and death on the operating table. Moreover, suturing takes more time, which means a longer time with blood circulation artificially stopped. Each second can cause damage to the body, particularly the brain.

The development by the Chen Hsing not only eliminates the need for sutures, it also provides a greater surface area for contact between the artificial and natural tissues. This means that the stress is more evenly distributed on the tissue, preventing splits. Since the duration of surgery is also shorter, 17 of the 19 patients in the study were able to come off the respirator on the same day of the surgery, and post-surgical scans revealed no bulging or separation.

Tzu Chi volunteers happy with what they have
Each set of chairs in the house of Chen Ah-tao, a volunteer worker with the Tzu Chi Buddhist Compassion Relief Foundation, is of an entirely different style. The point of these chairs, according to Chen, is to add decoration throughout the workshop. Chen went to a variety of secondhand furniture shops where she picked out the chairs. Meanwhile, Hsiao Hsiu-chu has a wide variety of styles of clothes hung in the closet. However, each piece of clothing in the closet is used. The only new item in the closet is her Tzu Chi uniform.

Chen and Hsiao are Tzu Chi "roadside entrepreneurs." The two women do not desire a lot and are content with what they have. They treasure their good luck and cherish the goods they have. While they are by no means wealthy, and in fact are more on the poor end of the scale, they nonetheless feel joy each day.

Chen works as a hair stylist. She previously pledged before Buddha her willingness to donate NT$1 million to help others in need. Even though each time she washes hair for others she earns only NT$100, after three yeas of hard work and the skin of her hands having turned rough and dry, she has finally washed 10,000 heads of hair. As a result, she has raised and donated funds to the foundation to help others.

Chen was overjoyed to reveal the secret behind her life. She said that when she goes to the market to buy fruit and vegetables, she will ask the operators of produce stalls for the produce that they have thrown out or that has gone rotten. In addition, she will go throughout the neighborhood and collect old furniture and used electrical appliances that others have tossed out. Chen does not spend much money and donates just about all the money she earns to help others. Friends tell her that she would at least save some money for a casket for herself for when she passes away one day. Ah-tao responds directly by saying that she wants to donate her organs when she dies. "The body can be recycled. This means that I can save on having to buy a casket!"

Hsiao works as a wholesaler of disposable plates, bowls and chopsticks. Hsiao works as a volunteer at the Bade environmental protection station operated by Tzu Chi. Given the concentration of love and compassion at the station that comes from the volunteers who work there, the station is a popular place with companies, clubs and school groups to witness environmental protection work in action. When speaking to entrepreneurs, Hsiao Hsiu-chu frequently says, "Everyone can be a successful entrepreneur. I am! I am a success businesswoman as a 'roadside entrepreneur,'" Hsiao says.

Hsiao lives a quiet and frugal life. She said that except for her Tzu Chi uniform, all of the other clothes in her closet are secondhand. While she purchased her Tzu Chi uniform, the rest of the clothing is from the environmental protection station. Hsiao stressed that wealth comes from not haggling about things with others. This enables one to realize how much one already possesses, she said.

Neihu Technology Park to light up riverside buildings
The Taipei Neihu Technology Park has developed quickly in recent years, and a number of styles of office buildings have been erected in the area alongside the Keelung River. At night, the buildings are lit up. As the area continues to develop, it could eventually give a new image to the city.

The Taipei City Government's Department of Economic Development is drafting a plan that calls for cooperation with the first row of buildings along the riverside that are located in the Neihu Technology Park. The city government is looking to promote a nighttime lighting project. Having the buildings along the riverside lit up at night would create a new "beacon of light" in the city.

At present, over 20 buildings located in the Taipei Neihu Technology Park are located along Neihu Road and then around Titing Boulevard heading north. The buildings are home primarily to high-tech companies and firms in the media industry. In the evening, most of the buildings are lit up. However, the lighting is not organized; lights are turned on at different times. A number of companies previously suggested to the city government that the Neihu Technology Park should be upgraded to become a world-class industrial zone. They recommended that the government come up with an integrated plan for the area, somewhat like what Hong Kong and Shanghai have adopted in terms of lighting of the buildings along the watersides in those cities. People have said that having an integrated lighting plan for the area would also help to boost tourism in Taipei.

Chiang Mei-ling, the director of the Neihu Technology Park Service Center, which is an agency under the city government's Department of Economic Development, said that the companies in the technology park and the city government get together on a regular basis to discuss a variety of issues. Chiang said a number of companies in the technology park previously expressed similar opinions. She said many companies in the park feel that even though there are calls both at home and overseas to conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions, something still has to be done to coordinate the lighting in the park area. Chiang said many believe the effort should be initiated by the city government and that it could still emphasize energy-saving illumination or renewable energy. With this in mind, the exteriors of the buildings could be fitting with lights in a coordinated way to attract attention to the Neihu Technology Park. This would significantly increase visibility for the park zone, they said.

Liu Mei-hsiu, a section chief at the Department of Economic Development, said that the biggest problem being faced in the project to illuminate the buildings in the park zone is electricity costs. Liu said the city government has sought out Taiwan Power to cooperate in the project. Taipower, however, has yet to agree to the proposal. As a result, for the time being it is for the city and the companies in buildings along the riverside to work together to find a way to finance the project. According to a draft developed by the city, the city government would provide subsidies covering half of the electricity bills associated with the project in the future. Hong Kong and Shanghai would serve as reference in terms of the time in which the buildings are lit up. Most likely, illumination would begin as the sun sets and would continue until 10 p.m. or 11 p.m.

The Department of Economic Development said that a survey it carried out indicates that most of the areas in the park zone are already sufficiently illuminated. There are still several undeveloped plots that will require lighting. Once those remaining spots are tackled and the project is realized, the Neihu Technology Park will be on its way to becoming more beautiful at night.

Couple with expertise in horticulture set sights on restoring butterfly population
Chang Hsien-chung and his wife Chen Yu-chen originally lived in Taipei's Neihu District. 15 years ago they moved to Hualien County to raise orchids. After learning about horticulture, they devoted themselves full-time to this profession. These days, they are intent on the conservation of butterflies and creating ecosystems that facilitate the growth of butterfly populations. The couple's goal is to create ecosystems favorable to butterflies on at least 50 school campuses in Hualien County. They hope to make Hualien County into a paradise for watching butterflies.

Chang and Chen moved their family to Hualien to start growing orchids 15 years ago. Chen, who studied horticulture, created gardens and provided landscaping for bed and breakfast established in the area as well as people who built villas in Hualien. It was by chance that she came into contact with and became involved in the effort by Asia Cement to improve the environment around its Hualien cement factory. The company built a greenhouse and initiated a project to foster the growth of the population of butterflies in the area. This triggered the couple's interest in the regeneration of butterflies. Over the past 10 years, they gained quite a bit of experience and began to integrate gardening and landscaping with their efforts to boost butterfly populations. In addition to making the environments of their customers greener, this would enable their clients to enjoy seeing countless numbers of butterflies fluttering about.

Chang said that at first, customers were not overly interested in the butterfly part of the plan. In the process of creating an environment to foster the growth of butterflies, Chang and his wife first needed to plant flora that butterfly larvae enjoyed feeding on to attract butterflies to the area to lay their eggs. The next step was to plant nectar plants, which would provide a habitat for the butterflies and a means for them to survive. Chang said that many customers thought that this generated a lot of extra costs and just was not worth it. However, Chang and his wife continued to try to persuade their customers to go this route. Many of their clients have now accepted the plans, which he said has given him and his wife a sense of accomplishment.

As if helping their customers create an environment that is beneficial to the growth of butterflies was not enough, the couple also designed a greenhouse on their own and started growing a variety of nectar plants and tangerine trees inside. They then went out into the wild where they captured some butterflies and released them in the greenhouse. They have extended their efforts to restore butterfly populations throughout elementary and junior high schools in Hualien that are interested in the project. They have already set a target of creating ecosystems favorable to butterflies on at least 50 school campuses throughout the country. The couple hopes to gradually realize their vision over the next five years.

Street 'statues' enliven Taipei square in stillness
"Is that a statue, or a real guy?" At the Xinyi Viewshow Square in Taipei, a series of human figures stand in frozen poses for passersby in a tableau unique to the city. Pedestrians toss money to make them move, and the performers accumulate their own stores of stories, both happy and sad, from what they see on the streets, experiencing the full gamut of human emotion passing them by.

Three years ago, Chang Wang, originally a director, convinced the City Government's Department of Cultural Affairs and the Warner Movie Studio to donate the use of the square on vacation days for street performances. The interaction between "statues" and passersby would spark interest, he said, and bring some artistic joy to the otherwise stark panorama of city government buildings.

Huang Kuo-fu, 56, is a cab driver in Taipei. Three years ago, when he heard about the event, he went to Chang and asked to join the troupe. "A-fu", as he is known, said plainly that he was no performer. "No problem," said Chang. "The minute you hear the money clinking, you'll really be happy, and you can show that happy face." A-fu was really into his newfound activity, and often takes in five to six thousand NT dollars a day working as "Hoshigami", a popular game character.
　
Ting Fan used to be the principal of an experimental elementary school. The first time she performed as a statue, she appeared as the "Blue Alien", an extraterrestrial figure. Her costuming was stifling, and in just ten minutes, her entire body was covered in sweat. The sight lines weren't very good in the outfit either, and she was constantly being poked by curious people. In fact, the conditions were so onerous that she felt terrified.

One time, however, a little girl stood there and constantly applauded her. Finally, Ting stretched out a strangely-shaped hand to shake with the girl. Seeing the happiness on the faces of the girl an her parents, Ting felt that her work was actually meaningful after all, despite the hardships.

People walk back and forth constantly on the square, and a tiny greeting or smile can have a big effect. Ballet dancer Wang Ching-wen, who plays the "Moon Spirit", once wore contact lenses during her shift on the square. A wind came up, and her eyes welled up with tears. Onlookers didn't laugh at her, though; on the contrary, they took it upon themselves to offer her tissue paper to wipe away her tears. In the winter, evenings can be quite cold, and one audience member watched Wang for quite awhile and then quietly bought a box of chocolate and placed it near her feet, then put an NT$500 bill in the box, saying, "Get home early tonight and get some rest!"

At New Year's last year, a female high school student came alone to the square and without any preamble grabbed the hands of the "Blue Alien" and some other characters. It was not until workers came over that she discovered that the "statues" were in fact actors. The girl not only joined the troupe later, but also struck up a friendship with the Alien. Another time, a pair of young people on their first date met up at the square in front of where Chang was performing. No one could have guessed that six months later, the couple would be back at the same statue talking about breaking up. Fortunately, they made up and walked away hand in hand. Chang felt that he was on an emotional roller-coaster watching all this, but still retained his cold, emotionless and detached demeanor as befitted a statue.

Chen Chi-cheng, 17, is another member of the troupe. He joined just upon his graduation from high school, and mainly performs as a character that writhes on the ground. At first he had a hard time with it, but a word from Chang reminded him that "the ancestors of Man all came from just such beginnings." Today, Chen has come up with four distinct manners of crawling along, and is the only one of his peers still with the group.

"Moon Spirit" Wang Ching-wen says that street performers have it tough. If they were only in it to make money, they wouldn't last long. She once was in Barcelona where she met a visitor from Hong Kong at a ballet performance who said, "I know you from Taipei!" Back in the city, she was recognized by a French tourist who said, "Aren't you that moon spirit on the street there?" The world of art is truly without borders, and in many cases, these chance encounters are the greatest treasure of the people who give their art to passersby in the street.

Former convicts take course learning how their facial features impact their fate
Sitting inside a classroom at the Shihlin District Community College in Taipei City is A-teh, a man who was formerly in the prison system but who has paid is debt to society and has been rehabilitated. A-teh is sitting before a mirror. Sitting next to him is an instructor, Kuo Ling, who is studying his face. This is the first time in his life that A-teh has taken such a close look at his own features. A-teh said with some surprise, “Isn’t it the truth….the secrets in the features of one’s face long ago exposed my shortcomings and problems. Had I known all of this many years ago, I then would have made different decisions in my life.” Sitting in the same classroom were other people who have been released from prison on parole, former prisoners who have completed their sentences, and people who have served their time in jail but are still under custody. Thanks to arrangements made by the Shihlin District Prosecutor’s Office, all of them are now learning physiognomy, which is the assessment of a person’s character or personality from their outer appearance. Teacher Kuo Ling and a number of volunteers have helped the group of people who have been in the prison system to learn the various types of faces and features of faces, as well as the specific spots on the face that can help in predicting a person’s luck. The instructors are really making sure that the students are paying attention and learning the material. They are also teaching the students how they can change their appearance through amending their behavior and better taking care of themselves. This will be important in changing their destinies. The students are listening intently to what they are being told. When the class is over, many of them take pictures of their family members to the instructors, hoping that the teachers can provide some insight. One’s appearance is the result of how one feel’s in one’s heart, said one student. Some of the students said that in the future they want to stop creasing their brow, increase the amount of exercise they get, do good things for others and say good things. One student said that frequently drinking liquor has made his body unhealthy and this is something he wants to change. The course that featured six physiognomy classes came to an end on Sunday. The former convicts said they were so grateful for having the chance to take the classes. Each one of them wrote a brief note to express his hopes for the future. Each one of them knows that he faces quite a responsibility. Each of the students pledged that starting from this day onward, each would do his best to change his fate by making changes to their lifestyles that would alter their appearance, thereby altering their outlook on life. Chen Jih-hui-ling, a guardian who works for the Shihlin District Prosecutor’s Office and who has helped to promote the course for the convicts, said that over the past 20-some years, she has used all sorts of means to try to get convicts back on the right path. This marked the first time, however, that they had cooperated with Teacher Kuo Ling and the Shihlin Community College. Chen said that the course was well-received and appears to have sparked the people who took it to want to change their ways in order to improve their prospects for the future.

Food court at National Palace Museum opens, highlighting traditional Taiwaneseshes
It was just last week that the Grand Formosa Regent Taipei hotel was selling frozen dumplings for the astronomical price of NT$44 per dumpling. On Thursday, the Silks Palace restaurant at the National Palace Museum, which is operated by the Grand Formosa Regent Taipei, began selling a bowl of lard rice at a pricey NT$18. The restaurant is honing in on selling the food to local and foreign tourists. It is also bringing tasty and traditional Taiwanese food into a more formal restaurant setting, and is looking to wage battle against night markets and streetside stalls that also sell the dish.

The restaurant and hotel operator originally had the idea of trying to make a buck from a wave of mainland Chinese tourists that are expected to come to Taiwan in the future. As a result, the Silks Palace restaurant set up a food court on the second basement level at the museum. The food court opened don Thursday. The Grand Formosa Regent Taipei and Chikan Dan Tsu Noodles have cooperated in bringing the tasty Tainan noodle dish and other tasty dishes in all their authenticity to the National Palace Museum. The general manager of the Grand Formosa Regent, Steven Pan, invited Tainan City Mayor Tsu Tien-tsai up to the restaurant for the opening so that he could sample the noodles and other dishes on offer and announce that they taste exactly the same as they do down in Tainan.

Having spent half a year traveling all throughout Taiwan, the head of the Grand Formosa Regent's banquet division, Ting Yuan-wei, finally decided to set his sites on Chikan Dan Tsu Noodles. He said that the restaurant offers a wide range of traditional Taiwanese dishes, including lard rice, millet roe with rice, rice cakes, glutinous rice meat dumplings, and salty rice pudding. Each one of these dishes served up ranks among the tastiest in its class of food.

The founder of Chikan Dan Tsu Noodles, Tseng Feng-yu, was the daughter-in-law of the owner of the famous Tainan Dan Tsu Noodles restaurant. She learned about the art of cooking from her mother-in-law. Tseng ultimately split up with her husband and in 2002, she opened her first restaurant on Mintsu Road in front of the Chikan Tower. Over the years, the restaurant has become a resounding success, and Chihkan Dan Tsu Noodles is now a familiar brand name.

In Tainan, a bowl of lard rice sells for NT$25. After transplanting the dish to Taipei, the price for a bowl was slashed to NT$18. Tseng Feng-yu said that her aim is not only the tourist business, but to appeal to the Taipei public as well.

The theme of the food court at the National Palace Museum is to put Taiwan's culture of food on display. On average, the food on offer at the facility sells for between NT$180 and NT$220 a plate. Ting Yuan-wei said that the key to saving money is how you order. "It is no problem to spend only NT$100 and leave with a full stomach," he said.

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President touts trade pact with China
Nov. 19 (CANA) President Ma Ying-jeou promoted the government's proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China to leaders from various industrial associations at the Presidential Office Thursday.

The government should base its policies with regard to the ECFA on the principles of "meeting the nation's needs, " "support from the people " and "under legislative supervision" proposed earlier by Premier Wu Den-yih, Ma said.

"We will make clear the key points of the agreement at an appropriate time to make sure everyone knows what we are going to sign, " he said.

Facing the trend of regional economic integration in Southeast Asia, Taiwan should try to avoid being marginalized and should pursue engagement and closer economic and trade ties with other countries. It should make particular efforts to sign free trade agreements (FTAs) with other trade partners, the president said.

When it comes to signing FTAs, Taiwan should sign with its major trade partners to achieve the maximum effect. Taiwan's major trade partners are China, Japan, the United States, Southeast Asia, the European Union and Oceania, in that order, according to Ma.

"That's why we want to sign an ECFA with China, " Ma said.

As cross-Taiwan Strait trade volume is high, it will put Taiwan at a disadvantage if a sound framework is not established for both sides to engage in investment and trade activities efficiently and fairly, Ma went on, adding that the government's plan to sign the ECFA is based on the country's development needs and has nothing to do with being pro-China.

The chances of Taiwan's marginalization in the region will be less if Taiwan signs the proposed ECFA, Ma reiterated, adding that while he cannot give an assurance that other countries will sign FTAs with Taiwan following the signing of the ECFA, he believes the ECFA will help Taiwan in its efforts to ink FTAs with other economic partners.

He said that if the ECFA is signed, Taiwanese businessmen will have a bigger market and more business opportunities in China, a development that he said will significantly increase the chances of continuing peace across the Taiwan Strait and lower the risk of conflict.

The government will help industries likely to be affected by the ECFA, including footwear and towel manufacturers, by excluding them from the ECFA "early harvest list" which refers to merchandise and services that will be subject to tariff concessions or more liberal market access immediately after the ECFA is signed, Ma said. (By Garfie Lee and Y.L. Kao)

Cross-strait mutual political trust needed ahead of military trust


Taipei, Nov. 19 (CNA) Mutual political trust between Taiwan and China needs to be established before the two sides can talk about military confidence-building measures (CBMs) between them, several Taiwanese scholars said Thursday.

Speaking at a Taipei seminar on cross-Taiwan Strait CBMs, Wu Tung-yeh, a department chief of the Institute of International Relations of National Chengchi University, noted that a Chinese scholar told him day earlier that he was surprised to find that "no-one in Taiwan believes cross-strait CBMs will be possible."

Wu was referring to Yu Keli, director of the Taiwan Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Social Science in Beijing, who was in Taipei along with several other Chinese scholars last week to attend a seminar titled "60 Years Across the Taiwan Straits".

Taiwanese and Chinese experts in the Nov. 13-14 seminar were seriously divided on such sensitive issues as the "one China" principle and a proposed cross-strait peace agreement.

It was the first time political issues had been raised in any Taiwan-China meetings or seminars since the two sides agreed to the principle of "economy ahead of politics" in their engagements.

According to Wu, a peace agreement will not be possible until China recognizes the existence of the Republic of China.

"Taiwan will have no choice but to pursue independence should China stick to its position that the Republic of China is extinct, " Wu said.

Professor Kao Hui of the Kinmen Institute of Technology said that China, which has refused to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, has been reluctant to spell that position out that in order to maintain a "harmonious" cross-strait relationship.

For Taiwan, Kao pointed out, there are only two options: Either military CBMs or purchasing defensive weapons from foreign countries, as CBMs would make it unnecessary to continue buying arms from abroad.

Professor Wang Kao-cheng of Tamkang University said that judging from the experiences of reconciliation between Eastern and Western Europe, Taiwan and China have a long way to go before they can reach mutual trust, whether political or military.

On the "one China" principle -- the heart of the controversy between Taiwan and China -- the scholars said China must come to understand Taiwan's insistence on its right to interpret the definition of China.

Kao also said that Taiwan and China do not have consensus on the "1992 consensus, " which was reached between negotiators between Taiwan and China in 1992 and has served as the basis for several rounds of cross-straits talks over the past one-and-a-half years.

According to China, the "1992 consensus" is the equivalent of the "one China" principle, while in Taiwan, the ruling Kuomintang defines it as "one China with both Taipei and Beijing entitled to their own interpretations" and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party refuses to accept that it exists at all.

Kao said China has missed its window of opportunity to discuss unification with Taiwan, because Taiwan's National Unifications Guidelines "ceased to apply" and the National Unification Council "ceased to function" due to action taken by former President Chen Shui-bian in 2006.

For Taiwan now, unification "is not a goal but only an option, " he said. (By Liu Cheng-ching, Feng Chao and Bear Lee)

ECFA will reduce chance of war: Ma
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Thursday defended his plan to sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing, saying that closer cross-strait business ties would reduce the possibility of conflict.

Ma said the planned ECFA was not an attempt to lean toward China, but a necessity for the development of Taiwan.

Taiwan so far has signed free trade agreements (FTA) with five of its diplomatic allies, but the trade volume with those countries combined make up less than 1 percent of the country's total trade, Ma said.

"We must sign FTAs with our major trading partners," he said while meeting leaders of the Taiwan Federation of Industry, Taiwan Provincial Industrial Association and regional industrial associations at the Presidential Office on Thursday.

"They are, in order of trade volume, the mainland, Japan, the U.S., Southeast Asian countries, the European Union, New Zealand and Australia. That is why we want to sign an ECFA with the mainland," he said.

He said he was uncertain whether other countries would sign FTAs with Taiwan after it clinched an ECFA with China.

"It will reduce the chance of seeing Taiwan marginalized if we sign an ECFA with the mainland," he said. "I cannot guarantee that other countries will want to sign FTAs with us if we sign an ECFA with Beijing, but I believe we will see the abatement of obstructions and a boost to the chances of peace."

The more business Taiwan does with China, Ma said, the more secure cross-strait peace becomes, he said.

Ma said that as bilateral trade with China amounted to US$130 billion before he took office in May last year, it was bound to put Taiwan in an adverse position if there were no framework in place to make bilateral trade and investment more efficient and fair.

As the ASEAN-plus-One is set to take effect in January, Ma said there will be an ASEAN-plus-Three, an ASEAN-plus-Five or even an ASEAN-plus-Six in the future.

"If we don't sign the ECFA with China, we have to pay higher taxes for everything we export to China and it will deal a significant blow to our businesses," he said. "It is for the good of Taiwan's future development."

Ma said his administration was not especially friendly to China. "Even though we are not, we still need to do business with them. It is that simple," he said.

Ma said there were advantages and disadvantages in signing the planned pact, but added that his administration "will only do it when the advantages outweigh the disadvantages."

The president promised that the government would map out measures to take care of industries adversely affected by any deal, while including the "early harvest" article in the proposed pact to benefit certain businesses.

Ma said the ECFA would be completed in a piecemeal manner, similar to the FTA signed between China and ASEAN countries, which was signed in 2002 but did not go into effect until the following year.

As Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) has said, the government will only push an ECFA in line with the principle that "the country needs it, the public supports it and the legislature supervises it," Ma said he would honor Wu's promise.

He added that the government would make public its content "at an appropriate time, brief the legislature and let the lawmaking body review it."

"If it doesn’t pass the Legislature, it will not be implemented," he said. "We will do our best to be as transparent as possible. Please rest assured that we will take a Taiwan-centered approach while furthering the public's interests."

No cross-strait peace without recognition: academic
It is key for Beijing to recognize Taiwan as a political entity before both sides can sit down and negotiate a peace agreement, an academic said at a cross-strait forum on Thursday.

Huang Kuang-kuo (黃光國), a professor of psychology at National Taiwan University, said Beijing must take into consideration Taiwan's "face" before both sides can make an effort to create a win-win situation.

"When one does not have the courage to face history, that person does not have the courage to face reality," he said. "The two sides must face reality. With the theory that the Republic of China was subjugated in 1949 in mind, both sides are unlikely to talk about a peace agreement."

As both sides have expressed the hope to jointly publish a "Greater China dictionary," Huang dared the administration to challenge the Chinese authorities to write history together.

Huang made the remarks during a forum organized by the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) in Taipei on Thursday morning. The theme of the event was "Chinese culture with Taiwanese features — its meaning and impact on cross-strait relations."

Taiwan has a unique culture, Huang said, which mixes Chinese culture, Western culture and maritime culture. Despite its uniqueness and advanced character, Taiwan seems to lack self-confidence, he said.

Huang drew a clear line between Taiwan-centered consciousness and what he called "Taiwan spirit," which he defined as "a new power blending different cultural features."

With the rise of China, Huang said Taiwan must keep an open mind when it comes to competing with China.

"If we cannot compete with them, why don't we cooperate with them?" he said.

Chen Sheng-fu (陳勝福), chief executive officer of the Ming Hwa Yuan Foundation, said China was making aggressive efforts to catch up with Taiwan on the cultural front, in resources and budget.

However, he said that such efforts were politically motivated. Describing culture as soft power and "the last line of defense," Chen said the cultural exchanges of both sides are like marriage or friendship.

"It will only be sustainable if each side can preserve and unfold its own characteristics in an equal manner," he said. "Politics is the first priority when China engages in economic and cultural exchanges with Taiwan."

Taiwan, on the other hand, is a democracy where individual groups make separate efforts and therefore decentralize their power. Chen said, urging the government to work together with the private sector to maximize their efforts.

SEF spokesman Maa Shaw-chang (馬紹章) expressed a different opinion, saying "culture is to attack, not to defend" and that "politics is temporary and culture is forever," to which Chen said "I do hope so."

Chu Yun-han (朱雲漢), president of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, said the term "Chinese culture with Taiwan features" was coined by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Among its characteristics are the preservation of Chinese culture and integration of the cultures of Taiwan's modern society and immigrant society.

As both sides are set to move cross-strait negotiations a step forward from economic issues to cultural and educational ones, Chu proposed they remove "unnecessary man-made obstructions" and treat each other equally and reciprocally.

Culture can serve as an important asset in the development of cross-strait relations, he said, adding that it is different from economic and military might and that its essence is not quantity but quality.

"Taiwan has the condition and opportunity to play a significant role in the international arena," he said. "The foundation of Taiwan's soft power is culture."

Emphasizing that time was pressing, Chu said China was exerting itself to catch up with Taiwan at a speed faster than one could imagine.

"Let's hope Taiwan does not become the turtle and China the hare," he said.

Chen Chu aide detained following bribe accusation
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) apologized to the public on Thursday after a long-term aide was detained after being accused of accepting a bribe from a World Games bidder during the latter's stint as a deputy executive officer for the World Games Kaohsiung Organizing Committee (KOC).

"I feel awful," Chen said when fielding questions from Kaohsiung City councilors at the city council. She apologized to the public and added that the officer, Chao Chia-pao (趙嘉寶), had ruined his future.

After summoning Chao and three witnesses for questioning on Wednesday morning, Kaohsiung prosecutors detained Chao on Wednesday night for allegedly accepting a NT$2.5 million (US$77,000) bribe from Dentsu Taiwan (台灣電通) — an advertisement company — for helping fix reviews of the bids for two of the games' marketing projects.

Chao, who has been an important aide to Chen for a decade and currently serves as a staffer at the city government's Information Office, was responsible for the projects during his stint as the KOC's deputy executive officer. The project had a total budget of NT$93 million.

Chao denied the allegations.

Vice foreign minister in heated debut at Legislative Yuan
Incoming Vice Foreign Minister Shen Lyushun marked his debut appearance at the Legislative Yuan amid verbal clashes with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, reports said on Friday.

Shen, 60, has been accused of illegally over-reporting housing expenses to receive extra government subsidies during a diplomatic stint in Geneva, Switzerland.

Opposition Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker Tsai Huang-liang told Shen he was the "haughtiest government official" he had ever met. Tsai faulted him for using English expressions like "you know," "OK" and "all right" in his official report and for keeping his hands in his pockets while replying to questions from lawmakers.

Tsai said that with his "attitude", it was "no wonder" Shen had so many enemies at his ministry. "I not only have many enemies at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I have enemies in many places," Shen reportedly replied.

When Tsai asked why Shen had received two sanctions over housing subsidy irregularities if he was innocent, the vice minister told a MOFA department head to explain. He criticized his ministry's anti-corruption department for sending two officials to Geneva for eight days to investigate his case. Shen then turned his guns on the opposition party, wondering why MOFA officials had never investigated alleged scandals linked to the DPP administration of former President Chen Shui-bian.

Shen also became involved in verbal clashes with legislators from the ruling Kuomintang and in outbursts against other government departments. He told KMT lawmaker Hung Hsiu-chu that while serving in Geneva, he had once sent back four letters from the Department of Health Minister because he thought they just weren't up to scratch.

After the question-and-answer session, Tsai told reporters that with a vice foreign minister "like Shen," he was "sweating just thinking about" what could happen to Taiwan’s foreign relations.

A DPP colleague, Pan Men-an, said Foreign Minister Timothy Yang held no real power, but Shen was the real man in charge, the "underground foreign minister," as Pan described him.

DPP chairwoman optimistic about local elections
Taipei, Nov. 20 (CNA) The chairwoman of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) expressed optimism Thursday about the party's chances in the upcoming Dec. 5 three-in-one local elections, saying that the DPP is expected to retain its grip on the counties of Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung.

Tsai Ing-wen made the remarks in a radio interview in which she also said that according to recent polls, DPP candidates in the three counties had strong leads, while the candidate in Yilan county was enjoying a narrow lead against his ruling Kuomintang (KMT) counterpart and there was hope for the DPP in Taitung County.

"Overall, the situation for the DPP is moving in a positive direction, but close observation is still needed as to whether the tendency can be maintained up to polling day, when we can see quality change made through quantity change," Tsai said.

"It would be disappointing if the DPP fails to hold on to power in Yunlin, Chiayi and Pingtung counties," she added.

In the case of Hualien County, Tsai for the first time in public spoke in support of Chang Chih-ming, an independent candidate, saying that the battle in Hualien is not about winning but rather about choosing a good magistrate.

Tsai expressed reluctance to predict the election results, however, saying that the biggest variable in local elections is vote-buying and that the key to winning lies in bribery prevention.

To that end, the DPP's legislative caucus has already purchased video-taping equipment, she added.

More than 800 suspected vote-buying cases in relation to the local elections for mayors and magistrates, city and county councilors, and city and township heads, had already been reported as of Nov. 15, of which 13 are under investigation, according to the Ministry of Justice.

As six cities and counties -- Taipei County, Taichung City, Taichung County, Tainan City, Tainan County and Kaohsiung County -- will be upgraded or merged into municipalities that will not elect new chiefs until late 2010, this year's elections will be held in only 17 cities and counties.

Asked whether she will run for a mayoral position in one of the new municipalities, Tsai said it is too early to discuss, but added that "while sometimes the party chair might not be the best candidate, there are times when it is the chair's responsibility to stand up and play the game."

She also urged party members who intend to run for mayoral positions in the new municipalities to first work together to win the upcoming local elections before sitting down to discuss the matter.

Tsai was referring to a recent quarrel between Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu and Kaohsiung Magistrate Yang Chiu-hsing, both of whom look set to vie for the DPP ticket for the Kaohsiung municipal elections slated for 2010, when Kaohsiung County is scheduled to be merged with Kaohsiung City.

Yang accused Chen of releasing a poll survey showing that both Chen's support rate and satisfaction rate were higher than Yang's. Chen denied the accusation, saying that she had not published any public opinion polls.

Meanwhile, acting DPP spokesman Chuang Suo-hang said the party consensus is to discuss the arrangements for the 2010 elections after the three-in-one elections and that a party congress will be held in January to formulate a mechanism for fair competition. (By Wen Kuai-shian and Rachel Chan)

Taiwan plans to open cultural center in Tokyo: president
Taipei, Nov. 20 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou said Friday his administration plans to open a cultural center in Tokyo to facilitate the promotion of cultural exchanges between Taiwan and Japan.

"Our two countries have traditionally maintained close relations in various fields and bilateral cooperation has made further progress over the past one and half years, " Ma said while receiving Japan's Miss Kimono Ran Matsumoto at the Presidential Office.

With a view to strengthening bilateral cultural exchanges and cooperation, Ma said Taiwan's representative office in Tokyo is preparing to open a cultural center to serve as a platform for exchange programs and activities.

Noting that his administration has designated 2009 as a year for promotion of the special Taiwan-Japan partnership, Ma said cultural exchanges form an important part of the bilateral relationship.

The president said that earlier this month he attended the premiere in southern Taiwan's Tainan County of an animated film on Yoichi Hatta, a Japanese engineer who built an irrigation system in the county during Japan's colonial rule of Taiwan that helped develop the region into Taiwan's breadbasket.

"This kind of historically significant cultural event is conducive to and effective in enhancing the friendship between the people of Taiwan and Japan," Ma said.

Ma congratulated Matsumoto for her being selected as Miss Kimono and expressed his admiration for her decision to travel to areas in southern Taiwan that were hard-hit by Typhoon Morakot in early August and perform on the violon for disaster survivors there.

Matsumoto, a professional violinist, said she was honored to be able to visit Taiwan as part of a cultural exchange program.

"This is my first-ever visit to Taiwan and I take great pleasure in performing for typhoon-affected people to comfort them and encourage them to rebuild their lives with confidence, " said Matsumoto, whose award of Miss Kimono was one of the prizes given for specific disciplines at the 2009 Miss Nippon beauty contest.

The 25-year-old kimono queen also performed two pieces -- a Taiwanese folk song and a popular Japanese song -- for Ma, who praised her music as "very pleasing and soothing." (By Lee Shu-huan and Sofia Wu)

Taiwan's representative office in Sapporo to be opened Dec. 1
Taipei, Nov. 20 (CNA) Taiwan's representative office in Sapporo will be opened Dec. 1, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official said Friday.

The office will be officially known as the Sapporo Branch of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Japan.

According to Chen Tiao-ho, secretary-general of the Association of East Asian Relations under the ministry, Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng will attend the office's inauguration ceremony in Japan.

Wang is expected to return to Taiwan as soon as the ceremony is over and has no plans to meet with any Japanese politicians, Chen said.

Local government officials in Sapporo and Japanese parliamentarians will also be invited to take part in the event, he said.

The MOFA originally planned to open the office Oct. 24 but later decided to postpone the plan to allow for more time to train consular staff who will be posted at the office. (By Sinyao Shih and Y.F. Low)

Taiwan editorial abstracts
Taipei, Nov. 20 (CNA) The following is a brief roundup of selected local newspaper editorials Friday:

Liberty Times:

President Ma Ying-jeou's move toward eventual unification of Taiwan and China has moved a step forward after Minister of Education Wu Ching-chi unveiled a plan to accredit Chinese diplomas.

The plan, if adopted, will allow some 100,000 Taiwanese young people trained at Chinese universities to work in Taiwan and even to qualify to serve as civil servants and teachers.

Those people, who have already been brainwashed by China, are sure to instil local people with their pro-unification beliefs.

The plan will also give Chinese students access to Taiwanese colleges and allow them to work as Chinese spies by monitoring local teachers' lectures.

Those Chinese students trained at Taiwanese colleges -- financed with local tax payers' money -- might help the Beijing regime invade and annex Taiwan in the future.

As the policy will encourage more local young people to attend schools in China, those people will inevitably support Ma's pro-unification policy after they return.

Taiwanese should rise in opposition to Ma's policy by voting against him and his party in the year-end elections.



Apple Daily:

Attraction of Sun Chong-yu

Ever since Legislator Wu Yu-sheng was caught visiting a love hotel with an unmarried woman, the woman, Sun Chong-yu, has been catapulted into the limelight.

Sun has disappeared from public sight, while Wu has had to carry out his lawmaker's job and face the music.

There have been many reports about Sun, a beautiful middle-aged woman who rubs shoulders with fat cats and bigwigs.

As more and more educated and economically independent women are preferring to remain single, we can predict there will be more and more women like Sun.

China Times:

Revisit the case of the March 19, 2004 shooting

The Control Yuan has determined that the investigation into the shooting of ex-President Chen Shui-bian and ex-Vice President Annette Lu on March 19, 2004 was flawed. There is no direct evidence to support its conclusion that Chen Yi-hsiung, who was found drowned in a nearby harbor 10 days after the incident, was the sole individual responsible for the shooting.

We support the Control Yuan's determination to prod the Supreme Prosecutors Office to reopen the probe into the case to find the truth.

The case was clouded by mystery, and even Lu has challenged the investigation's findings and called for the case to be revisited.

If Chen Yi-hsiung is the shooter, the prosecution should produce convincing evidence to prove that.

United Daily News:

Accrediting Chinese diplomas to strengthen Taiwan students' competitiveness

The government's plan to accredit Chinese diplomas has sparked mixed reaction, with National Taiwan University looking forward to teaching the potential future leaders of China, while others worrying about the move's possible impact.

The opposition, led by the Democratic Progressive Party, vows to oppose the measure, with some of its supporters calling for a ban on Chinese-educated people serving in government.

We have to point out that they are shortsighted, as three of Taiwan's modern presidents have been educated abroad. The late Chiang Chiang-kuo was educated in Russia, Lee Teng-hui was educated by Japan, and incumbent president Ma Ying-jeou was educated in the United States.

If China were to impose a similar ban on its people educated in Taiwan, how could National Taiwan University educate China's potential leaders?

Boundaries will not protect our students from competition from their Chinese counterparts because competition will occur in the international arena anyway. Taiwanese students can, in fact, improve their competitiveness by studying together with Chinese students either in Taiwan or on the mainland. (By Maubo Chang)

Indigenous culture, customs to be upheld in reconstruction
Taipei, Nov. 20 (CNA) Indigenous culture and lifestyles will be observed in undertaking post-Typhoon Morakot reconstruction, a senior official in charge of rehabilitation affairs pledged Friday.

"The government will adequately respect indigenous culture, lifestyles and social customs in the post-disaster reconstruction process, " said Tsai Hsun-hsiung, chairman of the Cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development and head of an ad hoc post-Morakot reconstruction promotion committee.

Speaking at a news conference hosted by the Government Information Office, Tsai said an expert team has carefully inspected 64 tribal villages devastated by typhoon-triggered flooding and landslides in early August, and found that 33 of them are vulnerable to natural disasters and not safe to reside in.

Its inspection also found that 21 other villages are safe and that the 10 others are either partially or conditionally safe, Tsai said.

Relocating villagers to a safe location closest to their original hometown will be the top operational guideline during the resettlement process, the CEPD chief said.

"We fully understand that some tribal people look forward to an early return to their original settlements and that many others are worried about forced relocation to other villages or even farther away townships," he said.

Tsai noted that the Cabinet-level Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) has stepped up its communication with tribal inhabitants to facilitate the process.

The CIP has so far organized nearly 500 presentations for indigenous peoples on resettlement issues, and if tribes want a re-examination of their original villages, the government will fulfill their wish, Tsai pledged.

He also reaffirmed the government's previous promise that if all damaged roadways are repaired, electricity and water supply is resumed and all other day-to-day safety measures are ensured, displaced indigenous peoples will be allowed to return to their home villages before Christmas.

"The government will definitely make good on its promise on resettlement and exercise prudence in identifying dangerous areas while refraining from forcing indigenous peoples to accept its concepts or plans without prior communications, " Tsai reiterated. (By Lee Ming-chung and Sofia Wu)

Local elections not mid-term test for president: Premier
Taipei, Nov. 20 (CNA) Premier Wu Den-yih said Friday that the local "three-in-one elections" to be held in early December should not be seen as a mid-term test for President Ma Ying-jeou.

The local elections have only a limited connection with the central government and "it would be wrong to say that it is a mid-term confidence vote for the president, " Wu said in an interview.

Winning local elections depends mainly on individual candidates' image, popularity, political record and campaign efforts, rather than national political strategy and is thus only marginally related to the central government's performance, Wu said.

Eligible voters in 17 of Taiwan's 25 cities and counties will cast ballots on Dec. 5 to elect mayors and magistrates, city and county councilors, and city and township heads in the elections.

Seven other cities and counties -- Taipei County, Taichung City and County, Tainan City and County, Kaohsiung City and County -- will be upgraded or merged into municipalities and hold elections for local leaders along with Taipei City next year.

The December 5 vote will be the first major election cover all parts of the country since President Ma was inaugurated in May 2008.

With Ma's approval rating well below 40 percent and many Taiwanese feeling the impact of the global economic slump that has pushed unemployment to over 6 percent, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has been trying to make the vote a referendum on the central government's performance to date.

The DPP controls only three of the 17 counties and cities up for grabs and hopes to capitalize on dissatisfaction with the administration to add to its total. (By Lee Ming-tsung and Bear Lee)

No rush to engage in political talks with China: president
Singapore, Nov. 19 (CNA) President Ma Ying-jeou has ruled out the possibility of Taiwan entering into political discussions with China soon, despite growing ties between the two sides.

Ma said in a recent interview with Singapore-based Channel NewsAsia that Taiwan must be very careful about the matter and should not rush the process, because after 60 years of separation, Taiwan and China need some time to understand their differences.

He suggested that the two sides maintain the status quo and set aside any decision on whether to make a political change.

The president noted that former chairman of the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) Lien Chan and Communist Party of China General-Secretary Hu Jintao agreed in 2005 to push for the signing of a cross-Taiwan Strait peace accord and establishment of a military confidence-building mechanism.

However, Ma said, these goals are not intended to be achieved in the near future.

He reiterated that before Taipei can begin any negotiations with Beijing on the signing of a peace accord, China must first remove its missiles aimed at Taiwan.

On the question of whether he plans to meet with Hu in his capacity as chairman of the KMT, Ma said although the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have developed healthy relations over the past 17 months since his inauguration, the time is not ripe for a meeting between their leaders.

However, the president said he will not rule out the possibility of such meeting in the future, but added that it is not a priority issue at the moment.

At present, he said, economic issues should be given priority over political issue because economics, rather than politics, is what is most relevant to the people's life.

Ma said the proposed cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement is very important to both sides because it will help institutionalize and normalize their economic and trade ties.

While bilateral trade between Taiwan and China was valued at more than US$130 billion in 2008, there is currently no agreement in place to provide any protection for businesses, he noted.

Ma again gave the assurance that the pact will be purely economic in nature and will not involve cross-strait political issues, such as "one country, two systems," or "one China."

The interview was conducted Nov. 3 and was broadcast on the English-language station Wednesday. (By Charles Kang and Y.F. Low)

AIT chairman to brief Taiwan on Obama's China visit
Taipei, Nov. 19 (CNA) The chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) will visit Taiwan next week to give a briefing on the details of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit earlier this week to China, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Lyushun Shen said Thursday.

Shen disclosed the information when asked by a lawmaker about related issues.

Talks between Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao Tuesday in Beijing were the focus of the U.S. president's three-day visit to China, the third leg of his four-nation maiden official tour of Asia.

According to a statement released Thursday by the AIT, the institute's chairman, Raymond Burghardt, will arrive in Taipei Sunday and stay until Wednesday.

It will be his seventh trip to Taiwan since his appointment as AIT chairman in 2006, according to the statement.

During his stay, Burghardt will meet with President Ma Ying-jeou, Legislative Yuan speaker Wang Jin-pyng, Premier Wu Den-yih and other major political and business figures, the AIT said. (By Sinyao Shih and Y.F. Low)

Cross-strait judicial aid pact contributes to crime-fighting
Taipei, Nov. 19 (CNA) A judicial aid agreement between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait has contributed greatly to Taiwan's fight against crime since it came into effect June 25, a senior official said Thursday.

"The agreement has enabled the Ministry of Justice to forge a communication mechanism with its Chinese counterpart through which many illegal Chinese immigrants have been repatriated and several major cross-strait criminal cases have been solved in recent months," said Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan.

Speaking during a visit to the legislative caucus of the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU) , Lai said the judicial cooperative mechanism will operate even more smoothly and effectively in the future.

She was responding to complaints by NPSU Legislator Lin Ping-kun that some Taiwanese fishermen from his offshore home county of Penghu have been languishing in Chinese prisons for allegedly smuggling farm produce.

"Their families originally hoped that the signing of a cross-strait judicial aid accord would have allowed their loved ones to be extradited back to Taiwan... When I traveled to Beijing to explore why the imprisoned Penghu folks have not yet been repatriated, Chinese officials in charge of Taiwan affairs told me they had not been approached by any Taiwanese counterparts over the issue," Lin said.

He said the government should not just indulge in publicity and should instead take concrete action to address cross-strait issues and realize the goals of the agreement.

In response, Lai admitted that it "might take some time" for cross-strait agreements to come to fruition.

For instance, she added, the number of Chinese tourists entering Taiwan has approached the daily ceiling of 3,000 in recent days after a slow start following the signing of a raft of agreements that have gradually paved the way for the establishment of direct air links and tourist market opening over the past year.

As for the imprisoned Penghu fishermen, Lai promised that the council will ask the Ministry of Justice to look into those cases. (By Huang Ming-hsi and Sofia Wu)

Top Chinese negotiator scheduled to stay 5 days in Taiwan
Nov. 18 (CNA) Chinese negotiators will spend five days in Taiwan for talks with their Taiwanese counterparts on broadening cross-strait cooperation, Vice Secretary General Ma Shao-chang of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said Wednesday.

SEF Chairman Chiang Pin-kung and Chen Yunlin, President of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) , are scheduled to meet in Taichung in the second half of next month for a fourth round of talks, Ma said.

Four agreements on fishing labor cooperation, agricultural quarantine inspection, standards, inspection and certification of industrial products, and the avoidance of double taxation are expected to be signed during the first two days of the Taichung meeting, Ma said.

A seminar on Chinese investments in Taiwan will also be held on the third day of the meet, Ma said.

Ma and other SEF officials, however, have been tight-lipped on the exact schedule of the Taichung meeting and what areas of Taiwan Chen and his delegation will tour on the sidelines of the meeting.

Minister of the Interior Chiang Yi-huah said earlier in the day that Chen might visit places close to Taichung City, including the counties of Taichung, Changhua, Nantou and Yunlin.

Ma said that Sun Moon Lake -- one of the most popular scenic spots among Chinese tourists -- the Chung Tai Chan Monastery in Nantou County and the Earthquake Museum of Taiwan in Taichung County, might be on Chen's itinerary.

Meanwhile, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu, addressing concerns over a repeat of the protests that were held during the second round of SEF-ARATS talks in Taipei in Novermber last year, said in Hong Kong that he does not anticipate any undesirable incidents during the December talks in his city.

During the Taipei SEF-ARATS talks, Chen and other mainland negotiators were besieged by protesters at a Taipei hotel after a dinner party hosted by Kuomintang's Honorary Chairman Lien Chan.

The delegation was unable to leave the hotel until after midnight, despite a police escort.

"The conflicts in Taipei could have been avoided if preparations had been made to allow for protests," Hu said.

"Having learned from that experience, I hope the upcoming round of Taichung talks will take place smoothly and there will be no negative impact on Taichung," he added.

Hu earlier in the day presided over the opening of the Taiwan pavilion at an international real estate exhibition in Hong Kong.

(By Liu Cheng-ching, Stanley Cheung & Bear Lee) Enditem/ pc

Taiwan hopes to attend UNFCCC conference as observer: official


Taipei, Nov. 18 (CNA) Deputy Foreign Minister Shen Lyu-shun said Wednesday it is hoped that in the future Taiwan will be able to attend the conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as an observer.

At the upcoming UNFCCC conference in Copenhagen in December, Taiwan's representation will be confined to non-governmental organizations, including the Industrial Technology Research Institute, the Environmental Quality Protection Foundation, the Taiwan Institute for Sustainable Energy and Supreme Master Television.

Noting that UNFCCC meetings are convened regularly throughout the year, Shen said Taiwan may apply to attend as an observer of the World Health Assembly (WHA), since observers of affiliated agencies of the United Nations are allowed to participate.

"Our role this year is to figure out what are the issues of concern and see what mechanisms will be worked out at the conference," he said. (By Shnyao Shih and Rachel Chen) Enditem/ pc

Ma, CSC stump for county hopefuls
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Wednesday led newly elected members of the Central Standing Committee (CSC) on a trip to Pingtung County to campaign for the party's candidate for county magistrate.

Ma, in his capacity as Kuomintang (KMT) chairman, will preside over five other CSC meetings in central and southern Taiwan ahead of local government elections on December 5 to raise support for KMT candidates.

"We will hold the CSC in other parts of Taiwan to hear the voices of locals and help develop local industries ... Of course we will spare no efforts to take back Pingtung County next month," Ma said while campaigning for Chou Dian-lun (周典論), the party's candidate there. Ma said the race in Pingtung was tight, urging party members to put all their efforts into helping Chou's campaign.

Yang Yuan-hsun (楊元勳), director of the party's Pingtung branch, said the election result could be decided by as few as 10,000 votes.

Anti-corruption ranking rises: report
Taiwan has made improvements in its perceived levels of corruption, a new report issued by Transparency International (TI) said on Tuesday.

Taiwan ranked 37th out of 180 countries surveyed in the Corruption Perceptions Index 2009 report, with a corruption perceptions index (CPI) rating of 5.6, two notches higher than the previous year, TI-Taiwan said.

TI-Taiwan released the report in Taipei on behalf of TI — a global coalition against corruption based in Berlin.

TI uses a 0-10 scoring system to compile the CPI rating. The higher the score, the lower the likelihood of corruption in a country’s government.

Taiwan ranked fourth in Asia, trailing Singapore (9.2), Hong Kong (8.2) and Japan (7.7), but was slightly better than South Korea, which ranked 43rd with a score of 5.5, TI-Taiwan said.

China ranked 79th with a score of 3.6 among the 180 countries listed, compared with India’s 84th place with a score of 3.4 and Russia’s 146th place with a score of 2.2.

Topping the list were New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland, in that order. The US ranked 19th with a score of 7.5.

TI-Taiwan chairman Hung Yung-tai (洪永泰) said Taiwan appears to have rebounded from 39th position last year — the worst TI corruption rating the country had ever received.

"Nevertheless, there is still plenty of room for improvement in efforts to build a clean government," Hung said.

Taiwan's image has improved thanks to the series of measures the government has taken over the past year, Ministry of Justice officials said.

"Efforts will continue to secure the country a clean administration," the officials said.

DPP chair accuses Obama of 'retreat' on Taiwan's status
The opposition Democratic Progressive Party warned on Wednesday that the acknowledgement by United States President Barack Obama of Washington's "respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China" had "gravely compromised Taiwan's national interest."

Moreover, the DPP Central Executive Committee called on President Ma Ying-jeou and his party, the Kuomintang, to demand a clarification from Washington as to whether U.S. policy toward Taiwan had changed given what it called the "failure" of a "U.S.-China Joint Statement" issued after a meeting in Beijing Tuesday between Obama and People's Republic of China State Chairman Hu Jintao did not mention the Taiwan Relations Act as part of U.S. policy.

The CEC resolution related that, in the joint statement, the U.S. side stated that Washington "follows its one China policy and abides by the principles of the three U.S.-China joint communiques" but did not mention the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 which concerns Taiwan's security.

The DPP resolution claimed that this phrasing "overlooked Taiwan's sovereignty and the military threat to Taiwan posed by China" and that the failure by Obama to mention the TRA was "an evil consequence caused by the diplomatic truce and the pro-China tilt of the Ma administration" and "inflicted grave harm to Taiwan's national interests."

The DPP resolution also stated that the U.S.-China Joint Statement marked the first time that the United States has "expressed respect for China's sovereignty and territorial integrity" and declared that this statement marked "a major retrograde step in relations between Taiwan and the United States" and a "severe setback" for Taiwan's national sovereignty.

The DPP policy making committee claimed that "President Ma has not only misjudged this unfavorable trend for Taiwan but is actually self-satisfied" and "believes that now is the best time in relations between the United States, China and Taiwan."

The DPP resolution called on the government to "salvage U.S.-Taiwan relations" by calling on Washington to go through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to call on Washington for a clarification.

The DPP statement did not mention that the U.S. president had stated during a press conference with Hu Tuesday afternoon in which he stated that Washington's "our own policy" was "based on the three U.S.-China communiques and the Taiwan Relations Act."

However, DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen expressed concern for Obama's statement in the news conference as well as the joint statement that "the United States respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China."

The former vice premier claimed that Obama's statements reflected the influence of Beijing's drive to create an impression that "unification is inevitable and irresistible" and that "there is no other option."

Tsai cited the promotion of open discussions about unification in Taiwan, including statements made by former CCP Central Party School vice president Zheng Bijian, a close adviser to Hu and the arrangement for the cross-strait memorandum of understanding (MOU) on financial services supervision to be signed by "representatives of financial supervision agencies" of "the Taiwan Region" and "the Mainland Region."

"The pairing off of 'the Taiwan Region' and "the Mainland Region" reflects Beijing's 'one China' framework," said Tsai.

Fourth Chiang-Chen meeting to herald beginning of ECFA talks
Taipei, Nov. 17 (CNA) The upcoming meeting between the chief negotiators of Taiwan and China will herald the beginning of formal negotiations on a cross-Taiwan Strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) , Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang said Tuesday.

The proposed signing of the ECFA will be a topic of dialogue when Chiang Pin-kung, the chairman of the Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation, and his Chinese counterpart, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits President Chen Yunlin, meet in December in Taichung, Shih said.

He said Taiwan expects the agreement to be signed some time in 2010, and "as soon as possible."

According to Ministry of Economic Affairs officials, the government hopes that formal ECFA negotiations can start by January 2010, when representatives of the two sides will exchange lists of products they hope will be covered by an early harvest program under the trade deal. (By Lin Shu-yuan and Y.F. Low)

District judges mull corruption charges for Lee
Taipei District Court judges presiding over former Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Diane Lee's (李慶安) dual citizenship case said on Tuesday that they may consider trying her for corruption — which carries more serious consequences than the fraud and forgery charges she was indicted for.

During her trial, Lee told the court she did nothing wrong during her terms as legislator. She admitted to being a U.S. citizen during her service, but said she had mistakenly believed that public officials automatically lose their U.S. citizenship status when they are sworn in.

The judges remained skeptical, however, saying that if Lee was misinformed on related legislation, she would not have called on former Taipei deputy mayor Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) to step down in 1994 when she questioned him regarding his U.S. citizenship.

The judges have scheduled an additional trial date to decide whether to try Lee for violating the Punishment of Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例).

If convicted of corruption, Lee could face more than seven years in prison. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Lee said: "We respect the court's decision." Her attorney, Chuang Hsiu-ming (莊秀銘), said they were confident about the case.

Lee's dual citizenship scandal first emerged in March last year, when the Chinese-language Next Magazine reported that she still possessed a U.S. passport. The Nationality Act (國籍法) prohibits government officials from holding dual citizenship and requires that those who are dual citizens give up their foreign citizenship before assuming office.

In January, the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office received official confirmation from the U.S. State Department that Lee's U.S. citizenship remained valid.

Prosecutors allege that in the personnel forms she filled out as a Taipei City councilor in 1994 and during her three terms as a lawmaker starting in 1998, Lee left blank the field asking whether she held citizenship from any country other than the Republic of China.

Prosecutors say that the more than NT$100 million (US$3 million) in income Lee earned during her terms as councilor and lawmaker were therefore gained illegally because Lee held the positions illegally.

The money includes NT$22.68 million in income and public funds from her term as city councilor and NT$80.09 million from three terms as legislator.

Lee resigned from the KMT last December and gave up her position early this year.

City spokesperson Chao summoned by Taipei prosecutors
Taipei District Prosecutors have summoned Taipei City Council Spokesperson Chao Hsin-ping (趙心屏) for questioning next week in connection with a slander lawsuit filed by Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Hung Chien-yi (洪健益).

On October 15, Hung filed a lawsuit accusing the mayor and two other city officials of aggravated slander stemming from a dispute over Taipei's Maokong Gondola.

He accused Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), the city's Law and Regulation Commission head Yeh Ching-yuan (葉慶元) and Chao of damaging his reputation.

The city government had earlier accused Hung and a Formosa TV news reporter of fabricating a report about the Maokong Gondola not having enough security to keep out trespassers. The city government responded by releasing footage from surveillance cameras showing a security guard in the area. Both sides then vowed to sue each other. The Maokong Gondola has been closed for more than a year after landslides damaged one of its support pillars.

The district prosecutor's office said related documents were being reviewed and evidence gathered.

Possible change in Taipei-Beijing-Washington relations: professor


Taipei, Nov. 17 (CNA) A professor at Chinese Culture University in Taipei expressed worry Tuesday that the United States seems to have further "comprehended, affirmed and accepted the position of China, " while underscoring the importance of the Taiwan issue in U.S.-Taiwan relations.

In the wake of the announcement of a joint statement by U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao earlier that day, Tsai Wei said Taiwan's role and function in the Taipei- Beijing-Washington relations might be further marginalized.

The two leaders pointed out five areas of emphasis in the joint statement -- U.S.-China relations, building and deepening bilateral strategic trust, economic cooperation and global recovery, regional and global challenges, and climate change, energy and the environment.

Tsai called attention to the part of the statement regarding building and deepening bilateral strategic trust, saying that "China emphasized that the Taiwan issue concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity... The United States stated that it follows its one China policy and abides by the principles of the three U.S.-China joint communiques."

Although Obama did mention the Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. law governing relations between Washington and Taipei in the absence of diplomatic relations, only the three communiques appeared on the joint statement, Tsai pointed out.

The professor of international relations suggested that as China's economy continues to grow and its role in international relations and regional security expands, Obama's China visit and the issuance of the joint statement could weaken relations between the U.S. and Taiwan and further marginalize Taiwan's role in the triangular relations.

However, interpreting the development from a different angle, Tsai added, the U.S. might need Taiwan more as leverage to check and balance the rising power of China. He suggested that the phrase: "The United States welcomes the peaceful development of relations across the Taiwan Strait and looks forward to efforts by both sides to increase dialogues and interactions in economic, political and other fields, and to develop more positive and stable cross-strait relations" bears this message. (By Liu Cheng-ching and Lillian Lin)

Opposition seeks legislative check of financial pact with China


Taipei, Nov. 17 (CNA) The Executive Yuan should let the Legislative Yuan review the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on financial regulatory cooperation it signed with China the previous day, an official of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said Tuesday.

Liu Chien-hsin, deputy chief of the DPP's Policy Committee, said the MOU was sealed only hours after the country's chief financial regulator Sean Chen briefed the legislature on it, which Liu described as tantamount to contempt for the legislature.

He accused the administration of having Chen sign the pact on behalf of Taiwan under the title of "representative of Taiwan's financial supervisory agency" instead of using the designation of "Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu customs territories" as the country is known in the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Noting that Chen's three Chinese counterparts inked the pact under the titles of representatives of Chinese financial supervisory agencies, Liu said this suggests there is only one China and is therefore backward and unequal.

"We should stick to the name by which we are addressed at the WTO," he said.

Liu said his party is concerned about whether Taiwanese financial controllers will be able to carry out their duties in China and whether the pact will provide China with access to local people's financial information.

"None of these concerns were addressed, because the content of the pact had not yet been publicized," Liu complained.

However, Premier Wu Den-yih said on a separate occasion that day that the government considers the wording in the pact to be equal.

"It was the only option after China expressed opposition to seeing Taipei using the title `Executive Yuan, ' despite Taiwan's preference for it," he said.

"By the same token, Beijing gave up the title of China because of our objection to it," Wu noted.

Meanwhile Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng said the Executive Yuan gave the legislature due respect with Chen's briefing the previous day.

"It was a pity that the DPP lawmakers refused to attend the briefing to protest the legislature's decision to hold it behind closed doors," Wang said.

In a related development, financial analysts in Hong Kong played down the impact of the pact -- which will give Taiwanese and Chinese banking institutions wider access to each other's markets -- on Hong Kong's status as a regional financial center.

Liu Darby, chief executive officer of Core Pacific-Yamachi, a Hong Kong investment bank, said it will give a shot in arm to Taiwan's financial industry, which is lagging behind its foreign counterparts.

He dismissed speculation that the MOU will undermine Hong Kong's role as a bridge between the financial sectors of Taiwan and China, saying that Hong Kong is an international financial center in which the financial institutions of China and Taiwan play relatively small roles.

Li Bing-hua, an executive with President Securities in Hong Kong, echoed his views.

"The movement of capital in Hong Kong is freer than in Taiwan and China, so Hong Kong will still attract investment from financial sectors both in China and Taiwan," Li said. (By Stanley Cheung, Sophia Yeh and Maubo Chang)

New Zealand to grant visa-free privileges to Taiwanese
Taipei, Nov. 18 (CNA) New Zealand will become the third country this year after Britain and Ireland to grant visa-free privileges to visitors from Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) announced Wednesday.

From Nov. 30, Taiwanese passport holders traveling to New Zealand for less than three months on business, as tourists, to visit friends or relatives or for short-term study, will no longer be required to apply for a visa before they travel, sparing them the cost of NT$2,850 (US$88.7) for a visitor visa or NT$1,350 for a group visa.

The United Kingdom began offering visa-free treatment to Taiwanese in March this year, allowing stays of up to six months, while Ireland decided to allow 90 days visa-free entry from July 1.

"The MOFA welcomes and appreciates the New Zealand government's decision, which I believe will further promote substantial bilateral relations between Taiwan and New Zealand and increase the number of Taiwanese tourists to the country," said Foreign Minister Timothy C.T. Yang at a news conference.

"Under President Ma Ying-jeou's flexible diplomacy, our top priority is promoting the interests of Taiwanese people, including seeking visa-waiver treatment from other countries," he added.

The foreign minister also announced that as a reciprocal measure, the government will extend visa-free stays for New Zealand passport-holders from the current 30 days to 90 days from Nov. 30.

A total of 33 countries around the world now offer visa-free entry privileges to Taiwanese citizens.

In a press statement released the previous day by the New Zealand Commerce and Industry Office in Taipei (NZCIO) , office Director Michelle Slade was quoted as saying that "New Zealand has long been a popular destination for tourists, students and business visitors from Taiwan."

The visa waiver program "should facilitate the further growth of these tourism, education and trade links," she added. (By Rachel Chan)

ECFA likely in 5th round of Taiwan-China talks: minister
Taipei, Nov. 18 (CNA) Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang said Wednesday that there is a good chance negotiators from Taiwan and China will sign a proposed cross-Taiwan Strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) in their fifth round of talks sometime next year.

"The bottom line for the government for signing the ECFA is that there must be no further opening of the local market to Chinese agricultural products, " Shih said while reporting to the Legislative Yuan on the ECFA.

Taiwan at present allows imports of around 2,000 Chinese agricultural products, and officials have repeatedly vowed not to open the market wider for a remaining 800-odd Chinese farm products.

During his report, Shih rejected a demand by opposition Legislator Su Chen-ching to "keep the domestic market closed to Chinese farm goods permanently, or at least until the end of his tenure."

"I will not promise that those Chinese agricultural goods will be banned permanently, but what I can say now is that the longer the ban remains, the better it will be for local farmers," he added.

He said that during their new round of talks scheduled to take place in the Central Taiwan city of Taichung next month, negotiators from the two sides of the strait are expected to start dialogue on the ECFA, but added that it will not be inked before the fifth round of cross-strait talks are held.

He said it is still unclear when the fifth round will take place, but added that the government "will try its best to have the ECFA signed in the first half of next year."

On whether China will agree to Taiwan's insistence (on denying access to the local market by Chinese agricultural goods), Shih said that while he could not answer the question on China's behalf, he believes the Chinese side will understand that "it's a Taiwanese government promise to its people and talks on the ECFA issue will not be able to go further if the promise is not honored."

The ECFA, once signed, will still have to get approval from the legislature before it can go into effect, according to Shih.

"The negotiators will have to return to the negotiating table should Taiwan's legislature refuse to endorse the pact," he added.

The ECFA, a cross-strait version of the free trade agreements signed between trade partners elsewhere in the world, is opposed by the opposition camp, which fears a possible negative impact on the country's economy. (By Tang Pei-chun and Bear Lee)

Tightened security measures for Taiwan-China talks in Taichung
Taipei, Nov. 18 (CNA) The government will take all necessary security measures to make sure that the next round of cross-Taiwan Strait negotiations will take place as scheduled in Taichung City in December, Minister of the Interior Chiang Yi-huah said Wednesday.

Chiang Ping-kung, chairman of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), and Chen Yunlin, president of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS), are scheduled to meet in the central Taiwan city in the second half of next month for their fourth round of talks to sign agreements on fishing crew cooperation, agricultural quarantine inspection, standards, inspection and certification for industrial products, and the avoidance of double taxation.

In an interview with CNA, Chiang said Chinese negotiators on the sidelines of the talks will also visit areas in the vicinity of Taichung and added that the National Policy Agency (NPA) under his ministry has formed a task force that will mobilize policemen from the host city and the neighboring counties of Taichung, Changhua, Nantou, Yunlin and even Chiayi, to ensure the safety of the negotiators during their tours.

During the second round of SEF-ARATS talks that took place in Taipei in November last year, Chen and the other Chinese negotiators were besieged by protesters at a Taipei hotel after attending a dinner party hosted by Kuomintang Honorary Chairman Lien Chan.

The delegation were unable to leave the hotel, despite a police escort, until after midnight.

"A situation like this will not be allowed to happen again, " Chang said, adding that the government will take every precaution.

His remarks came in the wake of protests, mostly by the pro-Taiwan independence camp, members of which vented their anger at Taichung's hosting of the SEF-ARATS talks a day earlier when Mainland Affairs Council Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan visited Tachung Mayor Jason Hu to make pre-talks arrangements.

They have also threatened to stage protests in the city coinciding with the talks.



He called on the public to get "accustomed" to Taiwan's hosting of negotiations with China, as these kinds of talks will be held in Taiwan even more frequently in future.

Under a tacit a understanding, the cross-strait talks take place alternately in Taiwan and China.

The SEF and ARATS are semi-official bodies authorized by Taipei and Beijing, respectively, to deal with cross-strait exchanges in the absence of diplomatic relations. (By Garfie Li and Bear Lee)

Ma opposes legal revision for US beef
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is unlikely to get its wish to ban "risky" U.S. beef products by amending the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) clearly opposed such a legal revision on Monday.

Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said Ma hoped that cross-party negotiations chaired by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) on Monday afternoon would produce a satisfactory result.

If caucus leaders could not reach a consensus, the matter would be put to a vote on Tuesday, Wang said, adding that Ma hoped the speaker would be able to find a solution that satisfied both sides.

Wang Yu-chi said Ma had expressed his anticipation that the ban would not be enshrined in the law and that Wang Jin-pyng was responsible for inter-party negotiations.

Wang Yu-chi made the remarks after the president's weekly lunch with top goverment officials including Wang Jin-pyng.

Wang Yu-chi said the administration's aim was to protect public health and reduce doubts about the safety of U.S. beef and beef products. At the same time, they hoped to maintain the nation's credibility and see the ruling and opposition parties abide by an agreement reached during the last round of cross-party negotiations, he said.

Caucus leaders agreed on November 3 to ban the import of "risky" U.S. beef products, but they did not see eye to eye on how to achieve it. While the DPP caucus wished to enshrine the ban in the Act Governing Food Sanitation, the Kuomintang (KMT) wanted to apply administrative measures to conduct strict examinations of the products which would effectively stop them entering the country.

Wang Yu-chi said if the act were amended to include the ban, it would violate the protocol signed by Taipei and Washington.

If the amendment were to institute strict inspection measures on the products, however, it would not violate the country’s international obligations, Wang Yu-chi said.

He said while there had been no word from Washington on the administration's plan to use administrative means to obstruct imports, he believed the U.S. government "would understand" as long as it did not violate the protocol.

Under the terms of the protocol, U.S. bone-in beef, ground beef, bovine intestines, brains, spinal cords and processed beef from cattle younger than 30 months that have not been contaminated by "specific risk materials" would be allowed to be imported into Taiwan.

Negotiations chaired by the Speaker on amendments to the act broke down on Monday. Caucus leaders agreed to resume talks on Tuesday.

DPP Legislator Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) said there was no room for concession, adding that his caucus would "express the strongest protest using the strongest means."

"It is the KMT's call whether they want to force through the amendments or move DPP lawmakers out of the legislative floor," he said.

Cow dung burger student continues protest
A National Taiwan University (NTU) doctoral student who protested the government's relaxation of U.S. bone-in beef import regulations by eating a cow dung hamburger on Monday continued his campaign in front of the Legislature after police had forcibly removed him and a coffin on Sunday night.

Chu Cheng-chi (朱政騏), a graduate student at NTU's Graduate Institute of Sociology, lay down outside the Legislature's front gate and covered himself with a straw mat — a gesture Chu said symbolized how the poor cover the body of a deceased person.

He said he would continue his hunger strike to protest a proposal by the Kuomintang (KMT) caucus to amend the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法).

Chu was referring to a proposal the KMT put forward last Tuesday to authorize the government to "draw up measures to inspect beef products from areas where the risk of mad cow disease has been under control," instead of two other prosoals for a ban on "risky" beef products from the U.S.

Chu began a "lie in" protest in a coffin in front of the Legislature on Saturday and vowed to stage a hunger strike until Tuesday, but police fined him and removed the coffin on Sunday night, saying Chu had violated the Road Traffic Management and Punishment Act (道路交通管理處罰條例).

Huang Tai-shan (黃泰山), a doctoral student from National Tsing Hua University, who also covered himself with a grass mat next to Chu, said five more doctoral students would join the protest should police remove Chu and Huang.

Chu began his anti-U.S. beef campaign on October 29 after the government announced its plan to allow imports of U.S. bone-in beef, as well as offal and ground beef from cattle younger than 30 months.

Chu posted a video clip on Youtube in which he ate a cow dung hamburger on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office.

Meanwhile, KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) continued to criticize the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus for threatening to paralyze Tuesday's plenary session over the wording of a number of proposed amendments to the Act Governing Food Sanitation. Lin said the KMT's proposal would guarantee public health as well as protect Taiwan-U.S. relations. He accused the DPP of being "too emotional."

"Does the DPP have its own political interests or the public's interests in mind?" Lin said.

The Legislature is scheduled to debate the proposal on Tuesday.

Chen's office says Ma 'turning Taiwan into police state'
Former president Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) office on Monday accused law enforcement agencies of conducting long-term surveillance operations on elected representatives, urging the administration to stop such practices in the run-up to the planned visit of China's top cross-strait negotiator next month.

In a statement, the office said Huang Kuo-chan (黃國展), a Tainan City Police Department captain, confessed during a court hearing on August 5 this year that part of his job was to gather intelligence on Tainan City Councilor Wang Ding-yu (王定宇) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

Wang was sentenced to four months in prison after he was convicted of harassing a visiting Chinese official in an incident that was widely televised last year.

The incident took place on October 21 last year when Zhang Mingqing (張銘清), vice chairman of China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), was visiting Taiwan to attend a seminar in Tainan. Wang was accused of pushing Zhang to the ground to protest his private visit to the city's Confucius Temple. Zhang, who suffered minor bruises, filed a complaint with local authorities and cut short his visit.

Zhang's visit preceded that of ARATS Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), the highest-ranking Chinese envoy to visit Taiwan in 60 years. Wang denied that he had pushed Zhang, arguing that Zhang "simply lost his balance."

As Chen Yunlin is scheduled to visit Taiwan again next month for the fourth round of cross-strait negotiations to be held in Taichung, Chen's office urged the administration to protect the human rights of all Taiwanese and ban security personnel, intelligence agencies and police forces from "breaking the law and abusing their power by gathering intelligence on members of the opposition and ordinary people."

The former president's office made public Huang's testimony on Monday and said it wanted to show the public how the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is "turning Taiwan into a police state."

In the testimony, Huang said he was supposed to follow Wang and gather information when Wang's defense lawyer asked Huang what his duties were on the day of the incident. He said he did not have any personal connection with Wang and that he was not the only elected representative under surveillance.

Legislator denies vehicle was provided by private firm
Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇), who has spent several days in seclusion after being caught having an extramarital affair, denied media speculation on Monday that the vehicle he used to travel to a motel with the woman was provided by a private enterprise.

In a statement released by Wu's legislative office, Wu said he has rented the vehicle, a BMW SUV, from Carplus Auto Leasing Co at a cost of NT$62,500 per month since June 12 last year.

Wu said he had used the car since winning his re-election bid, adding that the car was not offered by any private business nor did he have any inappropriate connections with any businesses.

Wu issued the statement after the Chinese-language Apple Daily cited an anonymous KMT legislator as speculating that the car might have been offered by a private company to Wu, since many businesses offer rented vehicles to elected representatives free of charge as a form of political donation.

The story also cited an unidentified reader as saying that the SUV was offered to Wu by a friend in the construction business.

Wu has been in seclusion since the Apple Daily ran a front page story on Friday featuring a series of pictures showing Wu and an unidentified woman arriving at a motel in Dazhi (大直), Taipei City, on Wednesday last week.

The report said that Wu, who is married with three children, had dinner with the woman earlier that evening and arrived at the motel at 9:21 p.m., leaving at about 11:50 p.m.

Wu admitted the affair and apologized to the public at the Legislature on Friday, saying he felt ashamed and guilty. He said he "got momentarily lost" because of an "impulse" and went to a place he should not have visited. He later announced that he would spend the next five days alone and try to make amends with his family.

KMT Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) said lawmakers should refrain from accepting donations from private enterprises.

DPP councilors question MRT cost
Three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors on Monday accused Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of "granting favors" to the contractor of the MRT Wenhu Line's electromechanical system by allowing it to adjust construction costs based on inflation.

The councilors — Lee Chien-chang (李建昌), Hsu Shu-hua (許淑華) and Huang Hsiang-chun (黃向群) — said Hau had bent the rules set by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during his tenure as city mayor.

"Mayor Ma signed an official notice stating that the construction costs of the MRT's electromechanical systems could not be adjusted because of inflation," Lee told a press conference.

"The terms stated in the MRT contract also exclude contractors of the electromechanical system from adjusting their costs based on inflation and asked them to evaluate risks after they secured contracts," Lee said.

"These documents showed that the contractor asked if it could enjoy the privilege of adjusting its cost based on inflation after winning the bid in 2003," Lee said.

"Prior to 2006, the Department of Rapid Transit Systems [DORTS] repeatedly rejected the contractor’s requests. But in May 2007, the department proposed that the contractor's request be accepted, which was subsequently approved by Hau in November 2007. The city then agreed to pay the contractor NT$1.5 billion in additional cost because of inflation," he said.

Huang also showed a document stating that the city agreed to this settlement because the DORTS said that failure to subsidize the contractor would delay the launch of the Wenhu Line, which was scheduled to begin operations in June.

After the press conference, the three councilors submitted the materials to the Control Yuan for investigation. They also filed lawsuits against Hau for allegedly favoring the contractor.

Taipei City Government spokesperson Rose Chao (趙心屏) rebutted the allegations, saying that the measures were legal.

"The mayor approved the request in accordance with measures laid out by the Public Construction Commission of the Executive Yuan in 2004 stating that construction costs for projects scheduled for completion after October 1, 2003, can be adjusted if inflation exceeded 2.5 percent. This applies to any construction project, even those that have a special clause on inflation in the contract," she said.

Chao said Hau did not bend the rules set by his predecessor, and that Ma established the rule at a time when there was no national regulation governing costs adjustments.

The change was simply made in accordance with the new measures, she said.

Emile Sheng takes office as culture minister
Emile Sheng, the chief organizer of the Taipei Deaflympics, took the oath as the new head of the Council for Cultural Affairs on Monday.

The announcement of his appointment last week followed the resignation of CCA Minister Hwang Pi-twan earlier this month.

Sheng served as a member of Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin's city government, for whom he managed the campaign for last September's Deaflympics.

Before that, Sheng gained fame as a political science professor at Taipei's Suzhou University and as a frequent commentator on talk shows and in the international media.

As he took office, he promised he would present a package of cultural policies after three months of consultations with experts.

Taiwan was facing a decisive period in the development of its cultural and creative sector, Sheng said.

The new culture minister said he would actively promote the liberalization of laws and regulations in the sector and push for cooperation with private business and with other government departments.

He specifically mentioned the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Tourism Bureau to promote Taiwan's cultural heritage overseas. Last week, President Ma Ying-jeou singled out the Taiwanese interpretation of Chinese culture as the key theme for the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Republic of China in 2011.

Sheng said he wanted to expand the number of people taking part in cultural activities and narrow the culture gap between city and countryside.

Sheng was not the only person to join the Cabinet on Monday. Former Economics Minister Yiin Chii-ming was sworn in as Minister without Portfolio.

He had initially turned down the offer after leaving the Cabinet amid a reshuffle in September.

APEC envoy expresses reservation on meeting between Ma, Hu
Taipei, Nov. 17 (CNA) Lien Chan, Taiwan's representative at the 2009 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit meeting, was non-committal Tuesday on when a meeting between Taiwan and China's leaders could take place, suggesting it would be better for cross-strait political dialogue to take place over an extended period of time.

"It would be a bit too optimistic to say that conditions are almost ripe for a meeting between President Ma Ying-jeou and President Hu Jintao to take place, " Lien said at his first press conference since returning from the APEC summit the previous day.

Lien, a former vice president who serves as the honorary chairman of the ruling KMT, said he and Chinese President Hu Jintao agreed during their meeting on the sidelines of the summit to continue the contacts and exchanges between leaders of the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Such dialogues are very flexible and could include a meeting between Ma, as chairman of the KMT, and Hu, as general secretary of the CPC, but it would depend on future developments, said Lien, who attended the APEC leaders' summit on behalf of Ma for the second consecutive year.

Lien and Hu met on Nov. 14 on the sidelines of the APEC summit meeting in Singapore. Hu promised Lien that talks on a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) across the Taiwan Strait will start within this year.

Asked whether Taiwan felt pressure from China to start political dialogue, Lien noted that Taiwan and China have achieved a lot to improve cross-strait relations since Ma took office in May 2008, especially on economic issues.

"It is necessary to have dialogue and it is good if both sides of the Taiwan Strait can establish a framework to maintain cross-strait peace, but it would be an even better development if the goal can be achieved over 'decades' rather than just one decade," Lien said.

Lien said that in the meeting, both he and Hu agreed that interactions between Taiwan and China are based on goodwill and are aimed at establishing mutual trust, which cannot be accomplished in one step and should be accumulated bit by bit like building blocks.

Speaking of his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at an APEC dinner reception on Nov. 14, Lien said they chatted for 10 minutes and the first thing Obama said to him was, "I know you" because the U.S. president's grand uncle Charles Payne was Lien's schoolmate at the University of Chicago.

Asked how he saw Obama's meeting with Hu taking place Tuesday morning in Beijing, Lien said China-U.S. ties would undoubtedly grow closer, as the two work together on issues such as anti-terrorism, North Korea, Iran, Iraq and economic affairs.

Lien said, however, that while Washington may seek a closer partnership with Beijing, it will not give up its core values and will pay attention to whether China and the U.S. share common interests.

For example, he said, the United States and China have common interests but also differ on the issues of market liberalization, free trade, the value of the Chinese currency, North Korea and Iran's nuclear program, and it is up to the U.S. leader to make a choice.

Lien is confident that closer U.S.-China ties would not affect bilateral relations between Taiwan and the U.S.

"While U.S.-China relations continue to grow, I believe that Washington's Taiwan policy will not change, as has been stressed by the U.S. many times in public and through many channels," Lien said.

"Under the Taiwan Relations Act and three communiques between China and the U.S., the framework of America's policies toward Taiwan and China are very clear and definite," he added. (By Rachel Chan) Enditem/ls

Taiwan solicits funds for El Salvador's hurricane victims
Taipei, Nov. 17 (CNA) Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Tuesday announced that it has opened a local bank account to collect funds from the public to help with relief operations in El Salvador, which is devastated by Hurricane Ida.

Taiwan's embassy in the Republic of El Salvador set up the account in the Tien Mu Branch of the First Bank in Taiwan. The special account for disaster relief is named "Embassy of the Republic of El Salvador," and the account number is: 190-10-116526.

Organizations, associations and individuals willing to make a contribution and "deliver their compassion and love to the anguished and suffering people in El Salvador" can make deposits to the fund, the MOFA said in a press release.

El Salvador is one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the region.

Hurricane Ida swept over the Central American region from Nov. 6-7, killing at least 194 people, with 80 others missing and 14,295 people forced to flee their homes, according to the Central American country’s official statistics released on Monday.

The torrential rains brought by Ida had triggered mudslides and rivers to overflow. Houses were buried, bridges collapsed and roadways cut off.

Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes immediately declared a nationwide state of emergency and appealed to the international community for humanitarian assistance and help. (By Rachel Chan) Enditem/cs

U.S. to launch program to screen containers in Kaohsiung port
Taipei, Nov. 17 (CNA) The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will hold an opening ceremony on Wednesday to officially launch the Megaports Initiative in which cargo at southern Taiwan's Port of Kaohsiung will be screened to prevent the smuggling of material used to make weapons of mass destruction.

In cooperation with international partners, the program enhances participating ports' capability to screen containerized cargo for nuclear and other radioactive materials that could potentially be exploited by terrorists to make a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) or radiological dispersal device, the AIT said in a press release Tuesday.

"Under the Megaports initiative, partners are provided with radiation portal monitors, related handheld detection devices, optical character recognition (OCR) technology, communications equipment, training, and technical support for key ports," it added.

The AIT and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in 2006 to implement the Megaports Initiative in Taiwan's Port of Kaohsiung due to its strategic location, role as a key transshipment point and the port's high volume, according to the AIT.

Since 2007, the DOE, through the AIT, has been working to equip the port with radiation detection equipment, as well as providing training to Taiwanese officials on how to operate and maintain the radiation detection system, and raising awareness among terminal operators of the potential danger of these materials.

In close cooperation with the Port of Kaohsiung stakeholders, the goal is to outfit the port with radiation detection monitors (RPM's) which will screen over 95 percent of all container traffic, according to the AIT.

AIT Director William A. Stanton, Taiwan's Deputy Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ho and Elly Melamed, Deputy Director of the Office of Second Line of Defense in the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration are scheduled to attend the opening ceremony, the AIT said.

Meanwhile, the AIT will open on Wednesday its second "American Corner" in Taiwan, located at the Bao Chu Branch of the Kaohsiung Public Library.

The Kaohsiung American Corner will feature books, pamphlets and DVDs about American culture and society and will play host to American speaker programs and cultural activities.

It will serve to provide an abundant source of information about all things American to residents in Kaohsiung, as well as a regular English-language storytelling program for young people.

The Corner also features an online program which connects students in Kaohsiung with advisors in Taipei who can answer questions about studying in the U.S.

Recognizing the outstanding cooperation from the Kaohsiung Public Library, the AIT has decided to upgrade the original "American Shelf" to the Kaohsiung American Corner, thus joining Taiwan's other American Corner in the central city of Taichung, which was established in 2006.

According to the AIT, a total of 393 cities around the world host the growing network of American Corners. (By Rachel Chan) Enditem/cs

MOEA head meets Chinese counterpart
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-hsiang (施顏祥) met his Chinese counterpart behind closed doors in Singapore on Sunday to work out an agenda for bilateral talks on a proposed bilateral economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).

Shih's meeting with Chinese Minister of Commerce Chen Deming (陳德銘) took place one day after Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) promised Lien Chan (連戰), Taiwan's representative to the annual APEC summit, that talks on an ECFA could start within this year.

Bureau of Foreign Trade Director Huang Chih-peng (陳德銘) and Lu Wen-hsiang (盧文祥), a section chief at Taiwan's representative office in Singapore, accompanied Shih to the meeting.

Sources close to the Taiwanese APEC delegation said Shih and Chen discussed the ECFA-related consultative framework, timetable and topics to be addressed in the pact.

The sources said ECFA issues were expected to be touched upon during the next round of cross-strait talks scheduled for next month in Taichung City, in accordance with Hu's promise to Lien on Saturday.

Four agreements are scheduled to be signed during the Taichung round of talks between Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).

Shih said the four agreements concern fishing crew cooperation, farm produce quarantine inspection, avoidance of double taxation and industrial product standards, inspection and certification.

"All these agreements are very important in the process of normalizing cross-strait trade and economic relations," Shih said.

The consensus reached at previous cross-strait talks is that the relevant EFCA issues will be tentatively discussed at next month's Chiang-Chen talks and then Taiwan and China will start formal negotiations on an ECFA issues in January.

An ECFA is expected to signed at the fifth round of Chiang-Chen talks, scheduled for the first half of next year.

The two sides of the Taiwan Strait have held four rounds of informal talks on ECFA, all of which focused on principles related to an "early harvest list," or items subject to tariff concessions or full market opening as soon as an ECFA pact is signed.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has said that the signing of an ECFA with China was urgently needed because a free-trade agreement between China and ASEAN will take effect next year, marginalizing Taiwan and crippling its economy.

The Ma administration hopes the pact will serve as a stepping-stone for the signing of free-trade agreements with other countries.

Critics claim, however, that the agreement will jeopardize Taiwan's sovereignty, make it too economically dependent on China and lead to an influx of Chinese capital and goods.

Legislature faces heat to restrict US beef imports
The Legislature is girding for a fight on Tuesday as lawmakers remain divided on amending the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) to ban "risky" U.S. beef products despite a looming deadline to push through legislation.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) told reporters the caucus might physically block the plenary session if no agreement is reached on the wording of relevant proposals by Tuesday.

The DPP caucus has objected to a proposed amendment submitted by the Kuomintang (KMT) last Tuesday to authorize the government to draw up measures to inspect beef products from areas where the risk of mad cow disease has been under control.

The caucus has also expressed concern that the KMT's proposal doesn't mention banning US beef. It has accused the KMT of trying to violate a legislative consensus to prohibit the import of "risky" U.S. beef products.

The government lifted a ban on U.S. bone-in beef, as well as offal and ground beef from cattle younger than 30 months, on November 2.

Legislators reached a consensus on November 6 that the Legislature should amend the law to ban potentially dangerous bovine intestines, ground beef, spinal cords, brains, skulls and eyes from being imported. They agreed to complete the amendment by Tuesday.

KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) said the KMT would not push through its proposal if lawmakers failed to reach a consensus. KMT caucus secretary-general Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said the Legislature's move was meant to safeguard public health.

If the DPP boycotts the plenary session, it would prove that the party doesn't care about the public's health, Lu said.

Meanwhile, in response to a march on Saturday by people demanding the government reopen negotiations on beef imports with the U.S., Presidential Office Spokesman Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦) said the government has heard the criticism.

The Presidential Office and Executive Yuan would continue to negotiate with the legislature on proposed revisions to the food safety laws, Wang said.

"We will amend the law in a way that will protect public health and not violate our international obligation," Wang said.

The amendments must not tamper with the spirit of the WTO and World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), he said.

ARATS vice chairman arrives in Taipei for discussions
China's No. 2 negotiator with Taiwan arrived in Taipei on Sunday for a weeklong visit to promote cross-strait cultural exchanges.

Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Vice Chairman Wang Zaixi (王在希) said upon arrival at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport that the purpose of his visit was to meet people from educational and cultural circles for talks on cooperation.

"The two sides have made great efforts in augmenting economic and trade exchanges over the past year and we believe the two sides should now bolster cultural and educational exchanges," Wang said. "Cultural and educational exchanges will help broaden cross-strait engagement and allow both sides to better understand each other."

This is Wang's second visit to Taiwan. He visited Taipei in July last year. His delegation was expected to visit the National Palace Museum, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Huashan Culture Park and other sites around Taipei.

Wang previously served as a vice minister in charge of China's national security and intelligence and deputy director of the Taiwan Affairs Office.

Taiwan not worried about Obama's China visit
Taiwan's government is not concerned about U.S. President Barack Obama's first visit to China, given the easing in tensions with Beijing, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.

A ministry group was monitoring Obama's trip, during which the issue of Taiwan could be raised by his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.

"The group will keep a close eye on Obama's China visit," foreign ministry spokesman Henry Chen told reporters. "However, we do not expect any surprise."

Relations between Taipei and its long-time rival Beijing have improved markedly since President Ma Ying-jeou came to power last year, pledging to boost trade links and allow more Chinese tourists to visit the island.

"The eased tensions are in the interest of Taiwan, China and the United States," Chen said.

The de facto U.S. envoy to Taiwan, William Stanton, said last month that Taiwan had no need to be concerned about Obama's visit.

"U.S. policy under the Obama administration toward Taiwan has not changed ... And I don't think we can expect any surprises in that regard," said Stanton, director of the American Institute in Taiwan.

Taiwan should help cope with climate change: president
Taipei, Nov. 16 (CNA) Taiwan should make a greater contribution to the worldwide effort to cope with climate change, President Ma Ying-jeou said Monday.

One most important part of the international effort is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and Taiwan, whose population accounts for a mere 0.3 percent of mankind today but releases at least one percent of carbon dioxide, must proportionately contribute to the struggle for limiting the damage of global warming, President Ma told three Pulitzer Prize winners.

One of the winners President Ma received at his office was Julie Cart, the climate change reporter of the Los Angeles Times.

"We are no signatory to the Kyoto Protocol, " President Ma said, "but we are doing what we can to reduce our fossil fuel gas emissions accordingly." One measure the government is taking is to collect green energy tax, requiring more fuel consumers to pay more in levy for their consumption. That is not enough, he added.

Another effort Taiwan is making is to participate in COP15 at Copenhagen on December 7-18. COP15 is the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, the highest body of the U.N. Climate Change Convention.

But President Ma is not quite hopeful Taiwan will be represented at Copenhagen. "Our NGO (non-government organization) , I believe, will take part," he said. One of the most well-known COP meetings was Cop3 in Kyoto, which resulted in the Kyoto Protocol, a document signed by over 180 countries and put into action in February 2005. Signatories have committed themselves to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by an average of five percent against the 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

Should Taiwan be fully and rightfully represented at COP15, it could better contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas missions, one major cause of global warming that has triggered climate change, President Ma pointed out. "We cannot, " he added, "because of the opposition from the other side of the Taiwan Strait."

That opposition, President Ma went on, will be softened as relations between Taiwan and mainland China continue to improve.

President Ma expressed interest in learning more about how the United States has coped with the challenge of race conflict, albeit Taiwan has no race conflict but communal disharmony. Another of the Pulitzer laureates he received was Hank Klibanoff, the author of "Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation" that won the 2007 prize for history.

Long before Han Chinese settled in Taiwan, Austranesian peoples had resided on the island. The Han Chinese have no racial conflict with these indigenous peoples now but are facing the challenge of communal disharmony, stirred up while President Chen Shui-bian was in office.

As a matter of fact, what is known as the feud between native-born Han Chinese islanders and Chinese emigrants to Taiwan after 1945 and their offspring born and brought up on the island had been all but disarmed by intermarriages and the removal of language barriers by the end of the last century. Chen pursued a hate-China policy, polarizing the Han Chinese majority in Taiwan.

That disharmony is impeding the improvement of relations across the strait, President Ma said. Taipei wants to promote peaceful cooperation with Beijing on the basis of the consensus of 1992, known popularly as the principle of one China with different interpretations. Under that tacit agreement, both Taipei and Beijing there is but one China whose connotation can be individually and orally expressed.

Efforts are being redoubled to achieve consensus among the people on Taiwan on how to further enhance relations across the strait, President Ma stressed.

Ma appreciated the pictures Damon Winter took in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election in the United States. Winter won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for covering President Barack Obama's successful campaign.

His photographs, President Ma said, have helped break the ethnic barrier in Obama's presidential drive. Winter was still another Pulitzer Prize winner the president met with in the morning.

All three prize-winning journalists took part in a two-day workshop at National Chengchi University, which closed in the afternoon. With "Rethinking the Concept of Professionalism" as its theme, the Pulitzer Prize Winners Workshop was organized jointly by the Central News Agency and Chengchi College of Mass Communications.

The forum, the second one held at Chengchi, will help improve the quality of news reporting in and about Taiwan, President Ma said. "In particular, " he stressed, "the three winners are specialized in fields where the press in Taiwan needs much more important."

"Their participation will be of great help to our press to make the world know and understand Taiwan better, " President Ma said. Taiwan has so far failed to increase its news exposure the world over. (By Joe Hung)

Top Deaflympics organizer sworn in to head cultural agency
Taipei, Nov. 16 (CNA) Emile C.J. Sheng, CEO of the 2009 Taipei Deaflympics Organizing Committee, was sworn in Monday as minister of the Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA).

Sheng succeeded Hwang Pi-twan, who resigned earlier this month.

The new minister, a political scientist who formerly served as chairman of the Taipei City Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, said he will work to convert Taiwan's cultural sector into an international competitive industry and promote Taiwan to the rest of the world through its culture.

According to Sheng, this is a crucial period for the development of the country's cultural creativity industry, and there is much that he would like to do in this regard.

To this end, a substantive plan will be released in three months time, after consultations with professionals in this field, he said.

He pledged to further promote deregulation, introduce more resources from the private sector and non-cultural government agencies into the cultural sector, enhance cultural liberty and improve integration of private and government resources.

The CCA is planning to work closely with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to promote cultural diplomacy and will also seek opportunities to collaborate with the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Industrial Development Bureau under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, he said. (By Chen Yun-yuh and Y.F. Low)

Ex-PLA chief downplays threat
A retired People’s Liberation Army (PLA) general said in Taipei yesterday that it was “meaningless” to ask China to remove the missiles it aims at Taiwan because they are mobile and that it would be more “useful” for Taiwan to recognize “one China” than for Taiwan to keep a big army.

Former PLA general Li Jijun (李際均), now the honorary chairman of the China Research Society of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, made the remarks during a cross-strait forum held to mark 60 years of cross-strait relations after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) troops lost the Chinese civil war and withdrew to Taiwan in 1949.

Li said China’s military threat was a “fake issue” cooked up by Washington whose purpose was to compel Taiwan to spend money on buying weapons from the US and help its military industry.

“I am urging Taiwan not to fall into the trap,” he said. “For anyone with basic military common sense, mobile missiles can be restored if they are removed … It is meaningless.”

It would be more “useful” for Taiwan to recognize “one China” than to have a 500,000-member army, Li said.

Li’s comments came as a slap on the face of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who has asked Beijing to remove its missiles before both sides can sit down and talk about a peace agreement. It also debunked a view recently expressed by US Missouri State University political science professor Dennis Hickey in an article published in the Los Angeles Times that the US should agree not to sell jets to Taiwan in exchange for the removal of ballistic missiles that China has pointed at Taiwan.

“Taiwan also deploys missiles aimed at the mainland,” he said. “The mainland people do not feel the threat … That thing [ballistic missiles] is not that intimidating.”

Saying the deployment of ballistic missiles against Taiwan was part of China’s overall defense strategy, Li added that they were not aimed at Taiwanese people but at blocking foreign forces from obstructing unification.

Taiwan’s National Policy Foundation adviser Jack Lee (李允傑), however, told the forum that it would be difficult for Taiwan to believe that it would be more useful to recognize “one China” than to have an army of 500,000 soldiers, given the lessons of history.

Lee said the KMT signed an agreement on nationalizing the army with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1945, but the CCP later negated it.

Lee said that while Taiwan understands China’s deployment of ballistic missiles is based on nationalism, the missiles pose a hurdle to a peace agreement, adding that Ma was not asking China to remove all its missiles, but to show some sincerity.

KMT Legislator Shuai Hua-ming (帥化民), who also took part in the forum, said both sides could be overreliant on a peace agreement to solve all problems. Taking the example of a peace agreement signed between Germany and the Soviet Union, Shuai said they resumed fire one day after the accord was signed.

“To rely on the peace agreement is to simplify the problem,” he said.

Asked for comments, Democratic Progressive Party Spokesman Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) yesterday said Li’s remarks reflected the fact that he did not understand Taiwan and that its 23 million people had the right to determine the country’s future.

“If China continues to pretend that the threat posed by the missiles to Taiwanese is not there and holds on to such ridiculous views, it won’t do any good for cross-strait peace,” Tsai said.

Lin Chih-chia (林志嘉), secretary­-­general of Taiwan Solidarity Union, said Li’s views were representative of China’s longstanding strategy of isolating Taiwan from the international community and forcing Taiwan to sign a peaceful agreement under its “one China” framework.

“China has been persuading the US to refrain from selling arms to Taiwan and warding off any interference of international players in cross-strait issues so as to achieve its goal of annexation of Taiwan,” Lin said.

Lin said China had recently ratcheted up the pressure on US over its arms sale policy to Taiwan after one of its main strategy to take over Taiwan by causing the country’s economic dependence on China started to generate results.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN

Focus on culture, not on military, for ROC centennial: Ma
A military parade will not be part of the celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the Republic of China (ROC), but a series of cultural activities will be held to showcase the nation’s soft power, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said.

“The ROC does not want to show the world its military capability, but rather prefers to highlight its culture in the celebration of its 100th founding anniversary,” Ma said during a meeting with advisers on the centennial celebrations on Friday.

“It hopes to display its soft power through cultural, artistic and academic activities,” Ma said, adding that cultural activities would be held throughout 2011.

Ma said China launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, dealing a severe blow to Chinese culture in the turbulent 10 years that followed. But four decades later, China is no longer criticizing Confucius’ teachings and instead has established institutes around the world to help propagate Confucianism and the Mandarin language, he said.

Ma said it was gratifying to see that mainstream thinking in China had gradually returned to its Chinese roots.

“For years, Taiwan has been the major stronghold, guardian and upholder of Chinese culture,” Ma said.

He said that since the ROC government moved to Taiwan in 1949, Chinese culture has acquired distinctive Taiwanese characteristics.

“Our roots are in mainland China, but we sowed seeds in this land that have produced the kind of phenomena and spirit that have yet to be seen in China,” Ma said.

Over the past six decades, Taiwan has promoted democracy, freedom and pluralism, and there are many activities and phenomena that reflect the country’s main characteristics, he said.

For example, Buddhism has existed in China for about 2,000 years, but after it came to Taiwan, it evolved into a societal and volunteer movement that also incorporates business management, he said.

Taiwan has also displayed creativity not only in culture, but also in industry, business and other areas, the president said.

Ma’s Web site sells virtues of regional economic grouping
By Ko Shu-ling STAFF REPORTER President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday emphasized the importance of regional economic integration, calling the phenomenon a “mega trend,” adding that Taiwan must make efforts to prevent being marginalized in the process.

As ASEAN Plus One is scheduled to come into force on Jan. 1, Ma said China was likely to catch up with Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy “by the end of this year” (sic).

“Such a free-trade zone will become one of the world’s largest because of the population of the region and its economic scale, which is second to the EU and North America,” he said in his weekly video address made public yesterday.

“The ASEAN Plus One can create many opportunities for mainland China and an ASEAN countries,” he said.

ASEAN PLUS SIX

From the EU, North America and ASEAN Plus One to ASEAN Plus Two and ASEAN Plus Three, Ma said there could be ASEAN Plus Six in future.

“The regional economy is gradually moving toward the road of integration,” he said. “During the process of integration, Taiwan must avoid being marginalized.”

Ma said that during his stint as Taipei mayor, he was invited to speak at an Eastern Asia Summit in 2003.

The talk was titled “Why Not 10 Plus 4?” he said, adding that at that time he was asking why Taiwan could not become the fourth country to sign a free-trade agreement with ASEAN countries.

REGION

Ma said Taiwan must strengthen its connections with the region and seek business opportunities because it is the right way to go.

As his administration is seeking to sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing, Ma said Taiwan cannot afford to ignore the rise of China.

It is inevitable that Taiwan will develop a closer economic relationship with China while East Asia is seeking economic integration, he said.

“We are doing this not only with the mainland,” he said. “We hope to develop such a relationship with our major trading partners.”

BEGINNINGS

Taiwan began the process with Singapore more than 10 years ago, Ma said, adding that the negotiations did not go well because of China’s suppression and the former Democratic Progressive Party’s insistence on using the title “Taiwan.”

After Taiwan and China sign an ECFA, Ma said he hoped other countries and major trading partners would change their attitude.

No timetable for political dialogue with China: Presidential Office
Taipei, Nov. 15 (CNA) The government is maintaining its "economy first, politics later" stance on engagement and negotiations with China and has no timetable at present for political dialogue with Beijing, the Presidential Office said Sunday.

Presidential Office spokesman Wang Yu-chi made the remarks in response to a call by Chinese President Hu Jintao in Singapore the previous day that "both sides of the Taiwan Strait should create conditions that are conducive to setting them free from political quandaries."

Hu promised Lien Chan, Taiwan's representative at the 2009 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum summit meeting in Singapore, that talks on a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) across the Taiwan Strait will start within this year.

Hu also reportedly told Lien during a one-hour meeting that "we should firmly grasp the theme of peaceful development of cross-strait relations and constantly open up new prospects for achieving that goal."

Lien, honorary chairman of the ruling Kuomintang and a former vice president, is attending the APEC leaders' summit on behalf of President Ma Ying-jeou for the second consecutive year.

At a news conference later that day, Lien quoted Ma as having said during one of his campaign speeches that "in the next 10 years, Taiwan will have no choice but to face efforts on laying a basis for peace talks with China."

"Ma made a similar statement during a speech at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2006," Lien added.

Trying to elaborate on what Ma said during the speech, Wang said that Ma, speaking in his then-capacity as Taipei mayor and KMT chairman, stated that if the two sides of the Taiwan Strait can negotiate a peace accord and use it as a framework for cross-strait interaction for the next decades, the realization of the accord will hinge on whether and how the two sides can remove existing political barriers.

Wang reiterated Ma's statement that "it depends on whether the two sides can dissolve the political obstacles that exist before the cross-strait peace framework can be built."

Meanwhile that same day, Wang said the government has heard the public's voice on the issue of expanded U.S. beef imports.

"The government will safeguard the people's health and food safety via a law revision that will not renege on the country's international responsibilities," Wang said.

"The administration will continue to communicate with the Legislative Yuan on the revision," he added. (By Garfie Lee and Deborah Kuo)

ARATS vice president arrives for weeklong visit
Taipei, Nov. 15 (CNA) China's number two negotiator with Taiwan arrived Sunday for a weeklong visit, primarily to promote cultural exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

Wang Zaixi, vice president of Beijing's quasi-official Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) , said upon arrival at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport that the purpose of his delegation's visit is to meet people from Taiwan's educational and cultural circles for talks on cooperation.

"The two sides have made great efforts in augmenting economic and trade exchanges over the past year and we believe the two sides should now bolster cultural and educational exchanges," Wang said.

"Cultural and educational exchanges will help broaden cross-strait engagement and allow both sides to better understand each other," he noted.

This is Wang's second visit to Taiwan. Formerly a vice minister in charge of China's national security and intelligence and a deputy director of the Taiwan Affairs Office under Beijing's State Council, he visited Taiwan in July 2008 in his capacity as an ARATS vice president.

Wang and his 13-member delegation were scheduled to visit the quasi-official Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), ARATS' counterpart in Taiwan, later Sunday.

The SEF and ARATS are authorized by their respective governments to handle cross-strait exchanges and related affairs in the absence of diplomatic ties.

The group is expected to visit the National Palace Museum, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Huashan Culture Park and other establishments in the greater Taipei area during its visit. (By Deborah Kuo)

DPP lawmakers protest revisions to food safety act
A boycott by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday threw a wrench in the legislature’s plan to allow a number of proposed amendments to the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生法) to skip a preliminary review.

Accusing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus of violating a cross-party consensus last Friday on banning “risky” beef products from the US, including bovine intestines, brains and eyes, DPP legislators occupied the speaker’s podium yesterday morning to block the legislature from proceeding with its plenary agenda.

DPP lawmakers held up placards that read “[The government] should not force people to eat US beef no matter how brutal [the government] is” and “Launch a renegotiation [with the US].”

KMT caucus whip Lin Yi-shih (林益世) yesterday shrugged off the DPP’s criticism, saying the caucus had not yet decided which proposed amendment to support. Lin lashed out at the DPP for paralyzing the plenary session, calling the move “absurd.”

The Legislative Yuan’s Procedure Committee on Tuesday scheduled a number of proposed amendments to the Act Governing Food Sanitation to be put on the plenary agenda for yesterday and next Tuesday.

Among the proposals was a version proposed by the KMT caucus on Tuesday to amend Article 14 of the Act, authorizing the government to “draw up measures to inspect beef products from areas where the risk of mad cow disease has been under control.”

In contrast, the DPP’s proposed amendment and another proposal by KMT Legislator Daniel Hwang (黃義交) sought to ban bovine skulls, brains, eyes and ground beef from nations or areas where cases of the disease have been documented.

Taiwan lifted a ban on US bone-in beef, as well as offal and ground beef from cattle younger than 30 months, on Nov. 2. The opening to beef offal and ground beef, however, has triggered public concerns that the products could be hazardous to human health.

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) on Wednesday said he welcomed the legislature’s decision to amend the food sanitation act to impose stricter inspections and ensure public health, but he also warned that the revision should not violate the beef protocol with the US.

In related news, the Department of Health (DOH) yesterday introduced a new team that would be responsible for screening imported US beef offal and ground beef.

DOH Minister Yaung Chih-­liang (楊志良) said the team would conduct checks on imported beef products upon their arrival in the country to ensure they are 100 percent safe for local consumers.

He said that once US beef offal and ground beef are shipped to Taiwan, team inspectors will require importers to prove the meat is from cattle less than 30 months of age. They will further ask the importers to defrost and open every case for safety inspection, Yaung said.

The inspectors will also visit shopping malls around the country to check whether they have opened US beef zones at the malls and whether beef products sold at the malls are all marked with their country of origin, he said.

Connolly is new co-chair of Taiwan caucus in US
Gerald Connolly, a Virginia democrat, has become the new co-chairman of Washington’s Congressional Taiwan Caucus.

He is replacing Robert Wexler, a Florida democrat, who has resigned from Congress and is leaving at the end of this year.

Connolly, who is serving his first term, is president of the freshman class at the US House of Representatives and is considered a rising star with the ear of the Democratic Party leadership.

A member of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Connolly has a post-graduate degree from Harvard University and spent 10 years on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He has a long history of contact with Taiwan, is knowledgeable about US-Taiwan relations and has visited Taiwan on several occasions.

For the last 14 years he has held major elected positions in northern Virginia politics.

The Congressional Taiwan Caucus was formed in 2002 to “explore ways to positively enhance and strengthen US relations and cooperation with the government and people of Taiwan in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act.”

It was formed with 85 members and now has 145.

Wexler, 48, a founding member of the caucus, has been one of the most vocal supporters of Taiwan in the House of Representatives.

The day before Taiwan held its presidential elections in March 2000, he sent a video message to Taipei urging Taiwanese to vote with their conscience and not to be intimidated by then-Chinese premier Zhu Rongji’s (朱鎔基) threats.

In September 2001, Wexler took the lead in introducing a resolution stating that it was US policy that the future of Taiwan should be resolved peacefully with the express consent of the people of Taiwan without threats, intimidation or interference.

He has also been a major supporter of a US-Taiwan free-trade agreement.

Wexler is leaving Congress to lead the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation — a private think tank.

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Magistrate announced that rice samples are not contaminated
Tainan County Magistrate Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) said on Thursday that tests had not detected excessive levels of heavy metals in samples of rice grain from Houbi Township (後壁), where soil from rice paddies was reported to be contaminated with chromium and arsenic.

For years, rice from Houbi Township was highly regarded, but recent reports that the town's rice paddies adjacent to a slag recycling plant contained excessive amounts of chromium have raised concerns about its quality.

These worries prompted the county government on Monday to send experts to take rice grain samples from three pieces of farmland suspected to be contaminated for testing.

Su announced the test results, which showed no excessive levels of heavy metals, at a press conference on Thursday. Su said that chromium and arsenic are not normally absorbed by rice plants since they are not vital for growth.

Although Taiwan has not set a standard for maximum allowable levels of arsenic in grain, the level of arsenic contained in the samples from Houbi was much lower than the German residue limit for wheat at 1 part per million, Su said.

Su said that the Council of Agriculture's Agriculture and Food Agency had taken more samples, including hulled grains from Houbi, for testing, but found no excessive levels of heavy metals.

With the quality of rice from Houbi assured, Su said that the county government would concentrate its efforts on helping farmers sell their produce. In addition to setting up purchasing hotlines, it will sponsor programs to promote Houbi rice.

Group petitions Wu on conditions for domestic workers
Members of the Taiwan International Workers Association (TIWA) petitioned Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義)on Thursday about domestic workers' rights as Wu made his way into the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) offices in Taipei.

Wu and Vice Premier Eric Chu (朱立倫) visited the council to hear various departmental briefings. However, on their way into the council building, they were stopped by labor representatives and workers from Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries.

Dozens of protesters had been staging a demonstration in front of the CLA building for better working conditions for foreign workers hired as household help.

The protesters were originally blocked off from Wu in order to maintain a safe distance, but, Wu allowed them to come closer to voice their concerns.

A protester complained to Wu: "There are 200,000 workers in Taiwan with no entitlement to any time off. This turns Taiwan into a country with no human rights."

Meanwhile, dozens of members of the association shouted in unison, "I want a break! I want a break!"

Wu accepted the association's petition and told them that he has heard their pleas and would work with the council to come up with ways to deal with the problem.

In response to the protest, the CLA said that because a "home" is not a place for making profits, it differs from the definition of a workplace or factory as defined in the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法).

The council also said because of the nature of their work, it is difficult to distinguish between time spent resting and being on stand-by.

However, the council said it values protection of home workers' labor rights, and is in the process of drafting proposals for legislation specifically tailored for them. The proposal is scheduled for completion early next year.

Taipei to inspect salt in shops within three weeks
Taipei City's Department of Health will complete a citywide inspection of all salt on sale in shops within three weeks following news that industrial salt was being sold as food-grade salt.

The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office on Wednesday launched an investigation into a company that had allegedly been repackaging industrial salt as food-grade salt and selling it on the market for more than three years.

The company, Huan Hai Co (環海), allegedly bought industrial salt from state-owned Taiyen for NT$3 per kilogram and resold it for a healthy profit.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilors including Chuang Ruei-hsiung (莊瑞雄) and Huang Hsiang-chun (黃向群) urged the Taipei City Government to take action to protect consumers and ensure the safety of salt on the market.

"This government leaves the people living under constant fear, with problems such as poisoned milk, bad oil at fast food chains and industrial salt. The city government should ensure food safety," Chuang said at the Taipei City Council.

Chuang and Huang collected 23 kinds of food-grade salt sold on the market, and said it would be impossible for consumers to tell the quality of the various salts, the cost of which ranged from NT$15 to NT$200 per package.

Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美), director of the Taipei Health Department's food and drug division, said the division would inspect all kinds of salt on the market, test them for heavy metals and publish the results in about three weeks.

Chiang said it would be difficult to spot the difference between industrial and food-grade salt. Consumers should read the list of ingredients on the package as a safety monitoring measure, she said. The division will investigate the responsibility of stores or importers whose salt is found to contain heavy metals, she said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said there was no evidence that salt sold on the market was contaminated with anything, appealing to the public not to panic.

"From a food safety angle, there are no safety concerns about the salt currently sold on the market," said Chen Chao-yih (陳昭義), vice chairman of the MOEA State-owned Enterprise Commission.

Agencies including the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection and the Department of Health have not found a single case of contamination by harmful ingredients, he said.

The bureau will randomly check around 5 percent of imports of edible salt at customs, including those from China, while the health department checks on the edible salts available in stores and at hypermarkets.

Huang Lai-ho (黃來和), the bureau's deputy director-general, said 151 batches totaling 11.2 million kilograms of edible salt had been imported from China so far this year, accounting for 70 percent of the country's imported edible salt.

Funeral parlors pump embalming fluid into Taipei sewers, city councilor says
Two funeral parlors in Taipei have for years been discharging embalming wastewater directly into sewers without any processing, a Kuomintang (KMT) Taipei City councilor said on Thursday, urging the Taipei City Government to improve its handling of wastewater.

Taipei City Councilor Chin Li-fang (秦儷舫) said Taipei's First and Second Public Funeral Parlors were not equipped with proper sanitary systems and discharged several hundred kiloliters of embalming wastewater — which includes water used to wash corpses, bodily fluids and embalming chemicals such as formaldehyde — into the city's sewers each year.

Displaying photos of the First Parlor's body-cleaning rooms, Chin said the two parlors' sanitary facilities enabled them to perform nothing more than simple sterilization of embalming waste, allowing chemicals in the wastewater to enter the drainage system and become a source of pollution.

"The parlors' handling of embalming wastewater has gone unnoticed, and residents are unknowingly exposed to unprocessed chemicals and waste," she said in a question-and-answer session at the Taipei City Council.

The Water Pollution Control Act (水污染防治法) puts embalming wastewater in the same category as regular household wastewater, Chin said, and urged the city government to process the embalming wastewater in the same way as industrial waste.

Chin also expressed concern about the safety of employees in the parlors' body-cleaning rooms and said the city government should improve the rooms to prevent workers being exposed to harmful chemicals.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said the parlors' handling of wastewater was unsatisfactory and promised to improve the situation within one month.

"We will conduct a thorough review of the wastewater handling process and set up professional sanitary systems in the two parlors as soon as possible," he said.

Hau said the city government would replace the sanitary facilities and have the Department of Environmental Protection inspect the quality of the water in their drainage systems regularly.

Not enough support for rural children: report
The Children's Welfare League Foundation released a report on Thursday showing serious gaps in support and opportunities for urban and rural children, and urged the government to close the gaps.

"Although we've made much progress in child welfare compared with 20 years ago, there is still plenty of room for improvement — especially when it comes to taking good care of kids in remote areas," foundation executive director Alicia Wang (王育敏) told a press conference.

The report was released to raise awareness of children's rights ahead of Universal Children's Day today. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, both of which were signed on November 20.

Ministry of Education (MOE) figures indicate that more than 70,000 elementary school children live in remote areas.

As many as 10.3 percent of these children live with their grandparents — about three times the national average — while their parents work in the cities, where there are more jobs and higher wages.

However, many grandparents are not able to take care of their grandchildren financially or meet other needs such as helping them with schoolwork, Wang said.

"We've found that 60 percent of children in remote areas do not have a desk, computer or a quiet place to study," she said. "Around 30 percent live in low-income families. They don't have their own room or money for ... tutorial classes. Some of them even said creditors would come to their houses asking their families to repay debts."

"The government should allocate more resources to [rural] children to bridge the gap and should pay more attention to them," Wang said.

The foundation also found that elementary schools in rural and urban areas alike do not receive enough support from the MOE.

On average, the ministry spends US$2,894 on educational resources per elementary student per year, compared with US$8,415 in Sweden, US$7,949 in Denmark and US$7,811 in Switzerland, the top three countries in this respect.

Taiwan also lags behind South Korea, where each student receives an average of US$3,379 in educational resources.

"The MOE is giving more and more money to colleges and universities, but less and less to elementary schools," Wang said. "Building a good higher education curriculum requires a solid elementary education."

Meanwhile, children in rural and urban areas had one thing in common — they all like to stay home in their spare time.

The study found that only 11 percent of children like to exercise on a daily basis, while 35 percent said they spent more than five hours a day watching TV on days off from school.

Also, access to resources may not be everything, the study found. About 23 percent of urban fourth to sixth graders said they had thought about suicide and 37.6 percent said it wouldn’t matter if they died. This compared with 10.6 percent and 28.2 percent of their rural peers respectively.

"Kids in rural areas may have less resources, but they're happier," Wang said.

Tourists not encouraged to take buses to Alishan
The Alishan Highway opens on Friday to medium-sized passenger buses, but the Tourism Bureau said on Thursday that it would not encourage tour groups to visit the popular destination until road conditions are more stable.

"We will formally notify travel agents what they should beware of if they insist on taking guests to Alishan, including some dangerous sections of the highway," Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Wu Chao-yen (吳朝彥) said.

Wu and travel sector representatives examined the roads on Wednesday and some suggested Alishan should not yet be opened to tourists.

Directorate-General of Highways General Secretary Mile Chen (陳茂南), said meanwhile that Typhoon Morakot damaged 46 sections of Highway 18, but the road is now relatively stable as the rainy season has passed.

"The embankment slopes at some of the damaged road sections are severely eroded ... people may still run into landslides or falling rocks," Chen said. "We might need to close the highway if there is heavy rain two days in a row or if an earthquake strikes measuring a 4.0 or higher on the Richter scale."

Prosecutors question three La New Bears players
Banqiao district prosecutors on Thursday questioned three professional baseball players from the La New Bears team amid reports that more team members may have been involved in a game-fixing scandal that could threaten the professional league's future.

Prosecutors questioned La New Bears players Hsu Wen-hsiung (許文雄), Huang Hsiao-wei (黃小偉) and Chiang Chih-tsung (蔣智聰), all of whom have been listed as defendants in an ongoing game-fixing investigation.

Prosecutors remained tight-lipped on the details of the questioning, saying only that they suspect many members of the team complied with gang members to throw games.

Prosecutors also suspect baseball coaches of involvement in game-fixing.

Prosecutors plan to question more members of the Bears team as the probe continues and may question witnesses and defendants this weekend to complete a full round of questioning players this week.

Since last month, prosecutors have been investigating claims that Tsai Cheng-yi (蔡政宜), the alleged head of the "Windshield Wipers" gang, and his associates established a syndicate that placed bets on professional baseball games and recruited players to manipulate the outcome of the games.

Initial investigations showed that Tsai and his associates may have bribed Bears players and Brother Elephants players alike with large sums of cash, parties with female escorts and the services of prostitutes, prosecutors said.

Since the investigation began, prosecutors have listed 12 members of the Brother Elephants as defendants on suspicion of game-fixing, including Elephants coach Shim Nakagomi, who was released on NT$80,000 bail on November 3.

This is the fifth time in 20 years that professional baseball players in Taiwan have been investigated for throwing games. The latest probe began last month after the Elephants lost 5-2 to the Uni-President Lions in the Taiwan Series championship.

Meanwhile, the La New Bears announced on Friday that pitcher Tsai Ying-feng (蔡英峰) and baseman Tsai Tsong-you (蔡宗佑) had been sacked over their alleged involvement in the game-fixing scandal.

Premier Wu wants low-priced homes along airport MRT line
Premier Wu Den-yih wanted to counter expensive housing in Taipei by building homes for young people close to stations on the future Mass Rapid Transit line to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the government said on Thursday.

The idea was mentioned in the Chinese-language Commercial Times on Thursday and confirmed as one of the ideas under consideration after the weekly Cabinet meeting.

The newspaper said the Executive Yuan had already formed a task force to choose locations within a 30-minute journey from Taipei Railway Station that could include housing affordable for young couples to buy. Each area would include more than 100 hectares of land to allow for the building of full communities.

The plan would allow young or first-time buyers to purchase cheap or mid-priced housing, Cabinet spokesman Su Jun-pin told a news conference.

The location of the communities close to MRT stations between Taipei and Taoyuan would be convenient for residents working in the greater Taipei area, Su said.

Wu found the inspiration for the communities in Hong Kong, where a new development had arisen along the rail link between the airport at Chek Lap Kok and the densely populated city center, the Commercial Times reported.

He wanted communities of 5,000 to 6,000 households living a reasonable distance from about ten out of the MRT line's planned 22 stations, the paper said.

The premier was also thinking of plans to replace numerous old two- to three-story houses in Taipei with six- to eight-story apartment buildings, the paper said.

Budding choreographer wins top prize in UK
Chou Shu-yi, an up-and-coming Taiwanese choreographer, has won the top prize in a tightly contested global choreographic competition sponsored by the renowned London dance house Sadler's Wells.

The 26-year-old choreographer, who is now a resident artist in Paris, told the Central News Agency in an interview that the victory was a big surprise to him. "I was really amazed that I won the coveted prize, " Chou said.

In addition to a cash prize of 2,000 British pounds (about US$3,278), Chou and his group will also be given an all-expense paid trip to London to perform at the Sadler's Wells Sampled dance festival in January 2010.

Chou started out as a dance enthusiast and began choreographing when he was a student at the Department of Dance at National Taiwan University of Arts.

He has twice won awards in choreographic contests sponsored by Taiwan's National Chiang Kai-shek Cultural Center. In 2004, his solo piece "Street Lamp" was performed at an international dance forum sponsored by Cloud Gate 2 troupe. Another of his pieces, "Under the Street Lamp, " also won a gold medal in a competition held that same year.

Chou said he is extremely happy to emerge as the winner in the Sadler's Wells contest because it has helped expand his vision and international exposure. Sadler's Wells launched its first-ever global dance contest in March in search of new talent.

The competition was open to all types of dance. Contestants were required to choreograph, perform and film an original dance piece and submit it on the Sadler's Wells Web site.

In the first stage of competition, a panel of six dance professionals selected 10 finalists from all the entries. Chou was the only Taiwanese choreographer to make it into finals of the online video contest.

Internet users were invited to vote for their favorites among the 10 final entries. Chou won from a field of competitors from Britain, the United States, Australia, South Africa, South Korea and Israel.

Alistair Spalding, Sadler's Wells artistic director, said it was a remarkable achievement for a young choreographer in the burgeoning stage of his career to defeat strong competitors from around the world with an outstanding dance piece.

Chou's win is not only a new milestone in his choreographic career but also brings pride to Taiwan, said an official at Taiwan's representative office in London.

According to Chou, his prize-winning work, titled "1875 Ravel and Bolero," was inspired by French composer Joseph-Maurice Ravel, whose famous Bolero was commissioned in 1928 by Ida Rubinstein for a dance recital.

"My work conveys the concept 'treasure and live in the moment, '" Chou explained.

"The music of Bolero is like part of time and also like the composition of one's life and living... accumulating piece by piece... but it comes to an end all of a sudden without leaving any traces."

Chou recalled that his dance piece, which he described as poetic, drew constant laughter throughout the filming process because of its extraordinary style. Chou said he is very grateful to all those who participated in the online voting.

"No matter which country or finalist the Internet users voted for, this innovative way of running a contest has allowed me to connect with more people and allowed more people to view my choreographic work and body language," Chou said.

Sadler's Wells is known as one of the world's most famous "sacred palaces" for modern dance. Only top-notch dancers and dancing troupes have been invite0d to perform on its stage. Taiwan's world-renowned Cloud Gate Dance Theatre has performed at Sadler's Wells several times.

Chou said he was quite overwhelmed to learn that he will be able to perform live at Sadler's Wells. Praising Chou's work as "brilliant, " Spalding said he believes it will not be eclipsed by other world-class pieces to be performed in the Sadler's Wells Sampled.

"His work is on par with many world-class pieces," Spalding said, adding that his theater looks forward to collaborating with Chou and his dancers.

Under the arrangement, Chou's group will give two performances at Sadler's Wells on January 30-31.

Butterfly habitat withstands typhoon
Much to wildlife conservationists' amazement and joy, Taiwan's only world-class purple crow butterfly habitat has managed to withstand devastation wrought by Typhoon Morakot, which battered southern Taiwan in early August.

"A recent field survey shows that the gorges of Seshe and Maolin Ecological Park in the Maolin National Scenic Area (MNSA) - the traditional winter habitat of the special migrating butterfly species - have remained mostly unscathed, " Wu Mao-sheng, director of MNSA Administration in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung County, said on Thursday.

Red algae perishing: expert
Global warming has taken a serious toll on Taiwan's ecology as the type and amount of algae growing under the sea in waters off southern Taiwan's Kenting National Park and the island's northeastern region have largely perished, an expert warned Thursday.

According to Lin Mei-shiu, a professor of National Taiwan Ocean University's Marine Biology department, long-term over-development and high temperatures in the summer have caused algae habitats and many types of algae to disappear. Since 2007, an obvious reduction in diversity of the plant has severely damaged the growing environment of coral reefs, she added.

Since 1992, growth periods of red algae and brown gracilaria that were often seen in the two regions have noticeably varied and their length have become shorter.

Typhoon victims protest relocation plans
Victims left homeless by Typhoon Morakot protested against government relocation plans in Kaohsiung County on Thursday, 100 days after the disaster.

About 300 mostly aboriginal residents of the worst-hit areas marched through the city of Fengshan to protest against the planned relocation of their village.

Typhoon Morakot brought excessive rains to Southern Taiwan on the August 8 weekend, causing floods and landslides which left an estimated more than 700 people dead and the government's image in tatters. Premier Liu Chao-shiuan later resigned amid accusations of incompetence.

The Kaohsiung County Government plans to move residents of the townships of Namahsia and Taoyuan away to permanent homes built by the Red Cross and the Buddhist Tzu Chi relief organization in the township of Shanlin. The government cited safety reasons, cautioning that the original villages might be threatened by more mudslides in the future.

Holding banners proclaiming "I want to go home," the protesters said the government should help the aboriginals obtain land to rebuild their homes as close to their original dwellings as possible. They complained that the local authorities forced them to put their signatures on a document either choosing a new permanent residence or their original home.

Some protesters threw eggs after their demand for Kaohsiung County Magistrate Yang Chiu-hsing to address them was not met.

The central government said that experts would complete a safety evaluation of 86 locations by the end of the month. Former residents could return to villages that were deemed safe, but if that was not the case, the residents should still be relocated to the new permanent homes, said Cabinet spokesman Su Jun-pin.

Premier Wu Den-yih said government departments were hard at work thinking of ways to bring commerce back to the stricken areas.

The weekly Cabinet meeting on Thursday approved amendments expanding the role of the fire departments to include more general disaster prevention tasks and forcing the military to take quicker action in helping with disaster relief.

Migratory birds thrive in Hualien's organic paddy fields
According to an experienced bird enthusiast, a rice granary located near an air force base on the outskirts of Hualien City in eastern Taiwan has seen an increasing number of local farmers growing organic rice in recent years.

Given that hardly any pesticides or agricultural fertilizers are used in farmers' rice-growing process, the number of birds seen in the area has also grown considerably, resulting in large flocks of birds spending time amid the crops. This has been especially the case since September as migratory birds have gradually arrived in Taiwan for the winter, making the rice paddies quite a bit more interesting than in the past.

Logs of the numbers of birds kept by bird enthusiasts show that over a three-hour period during one afternoon, a total of some 3,000 birds from 52 species were spotted, including migratory birds stopping for a brief period in Taiwan such as the paddy sparrow and a wide variety of snipes. The bird lovers have been extremely surprised by the huge number of birds spotted in the area.

Du Yi-zong, a veteran bird watcher, says that in the vicinity of the base are a number of streams and canals, making it a favorite habitat for birds. This is particularly the case with migratory birds, which have been congregating here. Du says that large numbers of birds gather in the area after each October. Since more and more farmers in the area have switched to organic farming, the overall environment has improved, making it easier for birds to find suitable food here and propagate, says Du. The overall food chain is quite clear cut in the area, which has since become a favorite spot for bird watchers to engage in their hobby.

Persons with disabilities to rally for rights
December 3 is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, and "Live Without Barriers', sponsored by Nookhope in Taipei, will commemorate the date with a parade on Saturday. Disabled persons are invited to come to Ketagalan Boulevard to demand equal civil rights.

Nookhope founder and chair Lian Mei-man says that Ketagalan Boulevard used to be a very sensitive location for Taiwan's government. In the past, demonstrators of all stripes have aired their views here. Only the disabled have been left out. This year, the group plans to take to the streets to celebrate the International Day of Persons with Disabilities and show that the disabled are every bit as diverse a group as able-bodied persons, while requesting equal rights and respect.

The "Nookhope Grand Parade of the People" will set off at 1 p.m. on November 21 from Ketagalan Boulevard, and proceed to Chingfumen and Liberty Square at the CKS Memorial Hall. At 11 a.m., a "Live Without Barriers" parade will set off from the square to show the creativity disabled people bring to their everyday lives. Finally, a concert will be held from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

In addition, the Taipei City Government Office of Social Services has rallied a group of 120 disabled persons and Internet users and three guide dogs via the Internet and will bring them together on November 20 at 12:03 at the Shinkong Mitsukoshi in the Xinyi District for a quick event marking the kickoff of the 2009 International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

Also on Saturday, there will be a "Love Without Barriers" event held at the Shinkong plaza, which will feature wheelchair ballroom dance exhibitions, displays of adaptive products and information booths.

Taiwan donates funds for international bird conservation
London, Nov. 20 (CNA) In a move to contribute to global wildlife conservation, Taiwan has again donated funds to Bird Life International (BLI) , a London-based organization working to protect the world's birds.

Chang Siao-yue, Taiwan's representative to the United Kingdom, presented a check for US$50,000 to BLI CEO Marco Lambertini in a ceremony held Thursday at Taiwan's representative office in London.

It was the second and final installment Taiwan had promised to contribute to BLI's Asian Forest and Climate Change project in accordance with a sponsorship memorandum of understanding signed in December last year.

Speaking at the ceremony, Chang said the government has spared no efforts in ecological protection and bird life conservation.

Since 1984, she went on, Taiwan has set up six national parks and an endemic species research institute to facilitate the conservation of wildlife and the protection of biodiversity.

Moreover, she continued, the government has enacted a raft of laws for the purposes of fauna and flora protection and cultural heritage preservation.

In collaboration with BLI's Important Bird Area (IBA) program, Chang said the Wild Bird Society of the Republic of China has set up 52 IBAs around Taiwan since 1999 to better protect birds and their natural habitats.

Impressed by BLI's achievements in ecological protection and bird life conservation, Chang said the government decided to donate US$100,000 in two installments within two years for the Asian Forest and Climate Change project, which is aimed at preventing illegal logging in various Asian countries.

Citing conservation group studies, Chang said, rampant illegal logging and abusive development of woodland areas have threatened many precious Asian animal species and exacerbated global worming.

For his part, Lambertini briefed Chang on progress in BLI's Asian forest conservation project and expressed gratitude for Taiwan's donation. He also praised Taiwan's commitment to wildlife conservation. (By Jennifer Huang and Sofia Wu)

KMT vice chair meets Chinese donor for Morakot victims
Taipei, Nov. 20 (CNA) Ruling Kuomintang Vice Chairman John Chiang met Thursday in the Chinese city of Xian with a Chinese elementary school girl who sent 20 Chinese yuan (NT$96) to help people in southern Taiwan who were affected by Typhoon Morakot in early August, a news agency in China reported that day.

Chiang expressed gratitude to Yang Zhuoxi, a sixth grader at an elementary school in the city, for her concern for the typhoon victims, according to China News Service.

Yang reportedly decided to make the donation after watching TV news showing the scenes of destruction in Siaolin village in Kaohsiung County by typhoon-triggered landslides.

She then saved her lunch money for more than 10 days to raise the donation.

Chiang also gave Yang a biography about himself and encouraged her to read more, according to the report.

Chiang promised to treat her to a variety of Taiwanese delicacies should she visit Taiwan and told her that Taiwan has a widely diverse culture.

Using "blood is thicker than water" idiom to describe the ethnic kinship between Taiwan and China, Chiang said this was illustrated by the mutual support extended to each other in the wake of the Sichuan earthquake in China last year and Typhoon Morakot in Taiwan.

Taiwan made about NT$6.4 billion-worth of relief donations to earthquake-devastated areas in Sichuan, of which NT$1.1 million was donated by a single veteran who handed over his life savings for the cause.

In response to the disaster inflicted on Taiwan by the typhoon, China was no less generous in offering material assistance and donations, Chiang went on. (By Y.L. Kao)

Grandparents more understanding than fathers: schoolchildren
Taipei, Nov. 20 (CNA) Most of Taiwan's schoolchildren think their grandparents are more understanding of them than their fathers, according to the results of a recent public opinion poll released Friday.

When asked to say "who cares about me the most, " most of the elementary school students from around Taiwan who responded to the poll said "mother, father, grandparents, classmates and siblings, " in that order.

However, on the issue of "who understands me the best, " most respondents cited their mother, grandparents, siblings and father, in that order, according to Chou Yu-ju, a lecturer with Shih Chien University in Taipei City, who conducted the survey in June this year to probe Taiwanese schoolchildren's concept or perception of "self."

It indicates that although the children can feel the affection and care shown them by their fathers, there is still a "distance" between the two since the children feel their fathers do not understand them, Chou said.

Chou suggested that fathers spend more time and communicate more with their children in order to narrow the gap.

"It's interesting that 'teachers' were absent from the two groups of people cited by the schoolchildren," Chou noted.

She suggested teachers should show greater care and affection for their students besides simply teaching them.

Chou, who doubles as a researcher with National Central University's Graduate Institute of Learning and Instruction, gauged the development of the schoolchildren's "concept of self" based on their physical and mental condition, academic performance, ethics, and family and social relations.

She said she found that the children who were raised in democratic ways by parents have a higher degree of "self-understanding, " while those who were constantly ignored by parents generally have poor self-understanding.

She suggested that parents raise their children in democratic ways and replace authoritative parental control with respect and communication.

Meanwhile, Chou said Taiwan's education system lacks the ability to help children explore or understand themselves.

"When it comes to 'self-understanding' or 'self-exploration, ' most of Taiwan's young generation remains at a shallow or skin-deep level," Chou said.

She said that when she asked her students at Shih Chien University to describe themselves in an essay of no longer than 300 words, half of the students represented themselves by describing their appearances and things they like or dislike.

"Only a few of them touched on their mental state, inner self or life goals," Chou said.

The poll of schoolchildren aged between 10-12 selected from six areas around the country was based on 811 valid responses. (By Liu Kwang-yin and Deborah Kuo)

British POWs remember prisoner of war life in Taiwan
o 93, 94 By Rachel Chan CNA Staff Reporter

Three elderly British war veterans have revisited Taiwan over the past week, where they have experienced a totally different set of circumstances from their last trip to the island more than 60 years ago when they were incarcerated here as prisoners of war (POWs) of the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

William Roy, Stan Wood and Stan Vickerstaff were part of a group of six former POWs who flew to Taiwan to participate in the Nov. 12-16 series of POW commemoration activities and while here they revisited the POW camps in which they were held in Taipei City's Dazhi district, and at Xindian and Chinguashi in Taipei County.

The annual event is organized by Michael Hurst, MBE and director of the Taiwan Prisoner of War Camps Memorial Society, which was founded in 1997 to unearth the stories of World War II POWs in Taiwan.

"I don't think I will come again because it's a long and tiring journey but I'm glad that I've come, " said 91-year-old Wood, who was held at the Kinkaseki POW camp in Chinguashi.

"I never wanted to come back. I wanted to have nothing to do with it. I drew a curtain down so as to not have any memory about it, " Wood said while recalling the hardships the POWs suffered and the atrocities they were subjected to by their captors.

From 1942-1945, Taiwan, then a colony of Japan, had 14 POW camps around the island housing Allied soldiers captured in the Pacific War. The Kinkaseki Camp, located nearby the copper and gold mine at Chinguashi, was the most notorious, with prisoners continually being brought from other camps to work as slave labor in the mine.

According to the Taipei POW Camps Memorial Society in Taiwan, 10 percent of some 4,300 POWs held in Taiwan were killed or died in captivity, compared with just 1-2 percent of those captured by the Germans and Italians, the other Axis powers.

The POWs suffered constant threat of death, disease, starvation and other ill-treatment.

Vickerstaff recalled that in November 1942 when they were brought to Taiwan from Singapore, the Japanese had civilians standing along the road, with children holding their noses as a sign of disrespect, to witness the deplorable condition of the British POWs, who had arrived after a three-week journey on a prison ship.

"The idea was that the Japanese were trying to humiliate us. They had school children watching us. It was all a big propaganda exercise for the Japanese, " said Vickerstaff, who was attending the remembrance ceremony for the fourth time.

Having worked at the No. 6 Camp in today's Dazhi for eight months digging alake, Wood said he was then moved to Kinkaseki, where for the next nearly two years he worked down the mine. The POWs were extremely maltreated there, he added.

Every day, they had to climb 800 steps to work in the mine and were given only a small amount of rice and watery soup with a few vegetables, according to Vickerstaff, who added that most of the men ended up weighing less than 45 kg.

Asked whether they hated Japan for their suffering, the three former POWs expressed different feelings.

Roy, 88, who was held at Camp No. 6 where he was engaged in farming and worked in a railway repair shop, said he hated the Japanese at the beginning but as the years have gone by, he now lets bygones by bygones.

Wood expressed similar feelings, saying that whenever he thinks of the image of a little Taiwanese girl he met after being released from the camp, he lost all his hatred toward Japan.

The image of the girl, who was terrified of him because the prisoners were smeared by the Japanese as ruthless killers, haunted him for years, he added.

Vickerstaff said his feelings for the Japanese have never amounted to hate but that he would never forgive them for what they did because a lot of it was "totally unnecessary."

"I feel sorry for them because they were so inhumane and I think a lot of it was to do with the way the Japanese army was trained. They turned decent ordinary people into savages and we had to suffer for that," said Vickerstaff.

"It was sheer determination that kept us going. We always knew that in the end we were going to win the war so it was always a question of `can we last out until that time?,'" he added.

Saying that they will never forget what the Japanese did, the three POWs said they would love to see the Japanese government acknowledge and apologize properly for their atrocities, but added that they have nothing against the younger generation of Japan because they are not the ones to be blamed.

"The whole purpose of the war was to make them see that their way was wrong and our way was better," Wood said.

Turning to their impressions of Taiwan, Roy, who brought his son along on the trip, said he was surprised by the experience and would like to come back with his daughter in the future so that they could see with their own eyes some of the images in his stories about Taiwan and could learn more about this page of history.

Wood said that while Taiwan was a complete and utter mystery to him during his imprisonment and even today, "the kindness of the people and the hospitality is out of this world."

Officials worried about industrial salt on food shelves


Taipei, Nov. 19 (CNA) Economic officials and executives of the state-run Taiwan Salt Industrial Corp. said Thursday that the possibility that unscrupulous businessmen are packing industrial salt as edible condiments to sell for higher profit has them concerned.

Earlier this month, Kaohsiung District Court prosecutors, acting on a tip-off that some businessmen were illegally selling non-edible industrial salt packaged as table salt to supermarkets in the Kaohsiung area, traced the product to a sea salt-processing company in Taoyuan County.

The action of the Kaohsiung prosecutors has attracted the attention of not only consumers but also the authorities, while the Taiwan Salt Industrial Corp. (TSIC), which supplies 80 percent of the salt consumed in Taiwan, cautioned consumers about the possibility of imported industrial salt being sold as edible salt in supermarkets and food stores.

Industrial salt often contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals.

Huang Lai-ho, deputy director of the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection (BSMI) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said in a press conference with other related officials Thursday that around 70 percent of the imported salt comes from China. In the last 10 months of this year, he noted, Taiwan imported 11,190 metric tons of salt from there.

Chen Chao-yi, vice chairman of the Commission of National Corporations, said that while only 5 percent of the imported salt is tested by the BSMI, the Department of Health (DOH) also makes random checks of table salt products. So far, no harmful components have been found.

A spokesman for the Kaohsiung District Court Prosecutors Office pointed out a day earlier that salt for industrial use is usually priced at around NT$3 per kilo, while table salt is sold at NT$25 per kilo in supermarkets. (By Yang Shu-min and Lillian Lin)

Premier suggests online poll on top 10 complaints
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) on Thursday suggested that the Cabinet's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) consider organizing an online poll for the public to vote on their "top 10 complaints."

Government Information Office Chief Secretary Joseph Chen (陳永豐) quoted Wu on Thursday as making the suggestion during a meeting in which Cabinet officials briefed him on a draft plan to revive the grassroots economy (庶民經濟), a concept floated by Wu since he became premier two months ago.

The "top 10 complaints" was inspired by Minister Without Portfolio Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) who was recently appointed to the post after he left the former Cabinet as minister of the economic affairs two months ago, Chen said.

Yiin was quoted by Chen as saying that he was annoyed when his vehicle, which was temporarily parked on a yellow line, was towed within three minutes of him stopping outside a convenience store.

Citing the example, Yiin said he believed many people have had similar experiences. Current traffic regulations permit a vehicle to park temporarily on a yellow line for three minutes so long as there's a person in the car.

During the meeting on Thursday, Cabinet officials proposed more than 200 measures in the draft action plan, but Wu asked the officials to scale down the size and to propose their flagship items by the end of the month, Chen said.

"When you want to take care of each and every aspect of every matter, you often end up achieving nothing," Chen quoted Wu as saying.

Education ministry to allow students and diplomas from China by June
Taiwan should give the green light to students from China and recognize diplomas from 41 prominent Chinese schools by June, Education Minister Wu Ching-chi said on Wednesday.

Responding to concerns from lawmakers, Minister of Examination Minister Yung Chaur-shin reiterated that the students would still not be allowed to take part in civil service exams and in tests for professional certification because only Taiwan nationals were qualified to do so.

The opening to China will not include medical institutions, while Taiwan's state universities will only accept BA and Ph.D. holders. The number of Chinese students allowed to come over will be also be subject to a quota system which could result in an estimated total of 2,000 per year, reports said. The number will be added to the amount of Taiwanese students allowed at the universities, so their rights will not be affected, said Education Vice Minister Lin Tsong-ming.

In addition, the universities attracting Chinese students will have to file applications with the ministry, with the number of teachers and the size of student hostels playing a part in the final decision, reports said.

The ministry was reportedly still considering whether the recognition of Chinese diplomas should be made retroactive, and to when. Lin said the date of 1997 was under consideration. Taiwanese students who graduated from Chinese universities over the past few years were reportedly worried their diplomas would not be recognized.

University presidents welcomed the government plans, according to media reports on Wednesday, but described them as "too timid." Shih Hsin University President Lai Ting-ming suggested the quota for Chinese students should at least be doubled. National Chung Cheng University President Wu Jyh-yang said the Chinese students should be paying the same fees as other foreign students, since it would be difficult to recruit them if they had to pay more than students from Southeast Asia.

Vice Minister Lin told reporters there would be public hearings before a final decision was reached about the level of fees. National Taiwan University chief secretary Sebastian Liao said he was not worried the government measure would draw students away from his school.

Locally produced H1N1 vaccine on par with imported one: premier
Taipei, Nov. 19 (CNA) Premier Wu Den-yi said Thursday clinical trials on humans have shown that a locally produced swine flu vaccine is on par with the imported one in terms of safety and efficacy.

Wu made the remarks as part of his efforts to enhance public confidence in the Adimmune Corp.-produced vaccine for swine flu, officially known as influenza A(H1N1).

Speaking at a weekly Cabinet meeting during which he was briefed on the current state of a nationwide H1N1 immunization campaign, Wu said epidemic control personnel should step up a publicity drive to let the public understand the locally produced vaccine has proved to be as effective as the imported one in a series of clinical trials.

"More publicity efforts are needed to dispel public misgivings, " Wu said, adding that he hopes more parents will be encouraged to have their children get swine flu shots.

Moreover, health care personnel should step up monitoring of any possible vaccine-induced bad effects and take measures to ward off public panic, Wu said.

As drug-resistant strains of the H1N1 virus have been reported abroad, Wu said epidemic control staff should heighten alert and keep abreast of the latest relevant information unveiled by the World Health Organization.

"Health care agencies at all levels should get prepared for worst-case scenarios," Wu stressed.

With the Dec. 5 three-in-one elections for local government and council posts approaching, Wu said the ad hoc Central Epidemic Control Center (CECC) should closely monitor public reaction about the various epidemic prevention measures, including class suspension, vaccination and polling station arrangements.

"The CECC should factor in general public demand and exercise proper flexibility in epidemic control measures to avert any possible public complaints or grievances," Wu said.

According to a Department of Health (DOH) report, 206 countries around the world have reported H1N1 cases to the World Health Organization, with at least 6,260 fatalities, since the swine flu outbreak began. As of Wednesday, 602 H1N1 patients had been hospitalized for H1N1 infections in Taiwan, 29 of whom had died while most others had been discharged after recovery.

The present nationwide immunization drive was launched on Nov. 1, with vaccines supplied by multinational pharmaceutical plant Novartis. On Nov. 16, the locally produced vaccine began to be used in inoculations for school children.

According to the DOH's immunization program, fourth graders and those of older ages need to get only one H1N1 shot, while younger children should receive two shots.

The epidemic control center has formed a special task force to tackle any possible H1N1 vaccine-induced emergencies and a supervisory corps to ensure timely response to any emergency cases. (By Hsieh Chia-chen and Sofia Wu)

Airport duty-free stores accused of violating anti-smoking law
Taipei, Nov. 19 (CNA) A local anti-smoking group on Thursday accused duty-free stores at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport of breaking the law by promoting cigarette sales.

Yau Sea-wain, president of the John Tung Foundation, said a total of nine cigarette products sold at the stores have been found to violate the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act, which can lead to total fines of up to NT$145 million.

In four of the cases, the sellers deliberately downplayed the warning messages, and in the other five cases, there were descriptions obviously intended to advertise for the products, Yau said.

He said although each in-bound adult traveler is currently only allowed to bring in one carton of duty-free cigarettes, the stores allegedly have encouraged travelers to buy more.

According to an informer, identified by his surname as Chang, he usually could purchase four to six cartons at a time, and he once bought 10 cartons.

The salespeople at the stores would teach consumers how to hide the cigarettes, but do not tell consumers this is illegal, Chang said.

The Bureau of Health Promotion under the Department of Health said it has received a formal complaint from the John Tung Foundation and has launched an investigation into the situation. (By Chen Ching-fang and Y.F. Low)

Taiwan children lack adequate exercise: survey
Taipei, Nov. 19 (CNA) Taiwan children do not get enough exercise, as only 10 percent of them exercise for at least one hour a day, according to the results of a survey published Thursday by the non-profit Child Welfare League Foundation (CWLF).

The poll of fourth, fifth and sixth graders in Taiwan showed that 44 percent of students at those levels of elementary school engage in physical activities less than three days per week.

Whether they live in urban or rural areas, many of them stay at home on weekends or holidays, according to the survey, which was released one day before International Children's Rights Day.

Some 35 percent of children in Taiwan spend an average five hours a day watching TV on holidays, while 56 percent said it is very hard to find fun outdoor places in Taiwan.

CWLF CEO Wang Yu-ming said Taiwan children tend to stay indoors for a number of reasons.

Children in urban areas prefer to stay at home and play video games or watch TV, while many of those in rural areas are being raised by their grandparents and thus do not have the opportunity to go out for picnics or entertainment, Wang said.

Around 80 percent of urban children in Taiwan go on pleasure trips twice a year on average, while those from rural areas on average do not get out even once in an entire year, according to the survey.

In the countryside, one in every 10 children live with their grandparents, which is triple the average national ratio.

According to Wang, some 27 percent of the children in rural areas are from low-income families -- twice the percentage in the cities -- and 60 percent of them lack adequate learning resources.

Meanwhile, on the issue of parent-child relationship, the poll found that children from both the city and the countryside have poor relationships with their parents. About 70 percent of the children in Taiwan have meals with their parents, lower than the 79 percent in developed countries, the survey indicated.

Taiwan ranked at the bottom of the parent-child category, among the 41 countries polled.

In the area of psychological health, the poll found that city children tend to be more depressed than rural children, despite a better living and educational environment.

Twenty-three percent of urban children have had suicidal thoughts, while 40 percent have no sense of self-worth, according to the survey. (By L. T. Chen and Flor Wang)

Taiwan's world-class butterfly habitat withstands typhoon damage
Taipei, Nov. 19 (CNA) Much to wildlife conservationists' amazement and joy, Taiwan's only world-class purple crow butterfly habitat has managed to withstand devastation wrought by Typhoon Morakot, which battered southern Taiwan in early August.

"A recent field survey shows that the gorges of Seshe and Maolin Ecological Park in the Maolin National Scenic Area (MNSA) - the traditional winter habitat of the special migrating butterfly species - have remained mostly unscathed, " Wu Mao-sheng, director of MNSA Administration in southern Taiwan's Kaohsiung County, said Thursday.

Usually the colorful creatures begin arriving in large numbers in Maolin's valleys in November, but this year, the first flocks arrived in early October, Wu said.

"The number of wintering purple crow butterflies is expected to be impressive this year, judging from the fact that the number of those arriving in October far surpassed the figure recorded for the same period of last year," Wu said.

About 400,000 purple butterflies were documented in the Maolin valleys last year, according to volunteers from the Taiwan Purple Crow Butterfly Ecological Preservation Association.

With the drop in temperature in northern Taiwan in recent days, volunteers said they expect more butterflies will come to Maolin for wintering this year and that the number may match the previous high of 1 million.

"At most, more than 100 butterflies will flutter over one's head in five minutes, " said one volunteer from the association which collaborated with the MNSA office in conducting an in-depth location survey in October.

As most butterfly flocks rest within valleys of higher altitude, tourists can only see scattered butterflies within river valleys during sunny mornings, the volunteer said.

In recent years, the MNSA Administration has regularly organized butterfly watching activities to allow more wildlife enthusiasts to admire the creature close up through guided tours.

Wu said a biennial butterfly watching program is scheduled to be inaugurated on Dec. 12 and runs until March 6, 2010.

Mountainous townships in the region, including Maolin, Liuguei, Taoyuan, Sandimen, Majia and Wutai, were all severely devastated by Morakot-triggered flooding and landslides.

After three months of closure to tourist visits, major pathways in the region have been repaired and paved with asphalt, Wu said.

"While large coaches will still be barred from entering due to safety concern, medium-size passenger buses, SUVs and compact cars can cruise the area safely," Wu said.

As a prelude to the biennial butterfly watching festival, Wu said his office will join forces with the Liuguei township office in organizing a drumming event at the township's Baolai Junior High School this weekend to console the many typhoon survivors in the region.

The renowned U Theatre will head a group of hearing-impaired students in performing its signature drum piece Mandala Dedication, which was presented in the opening ceremony for the 2009 Summer Deaflympics held in Taipei in September.

The program will be named "Drum Wish" as organizers hope that the beat and rhythm of drumming will encourage typhoon-affected people to regain faith and rebuild their lives and careers.

In late October or early November each year, instinct draws purple crow butterflies to take refuge in low-lying valleys on the two sides of the southern foothills of Taiwan's Central Mountain Range, most notably Maolin in Kaohsiung County and Dawu in Taitung County, where they winter until March.

At the onset of spring, the butterflies begin a 400-km migration back to their northern habitats, following a variety of routes from Maolin and Dawu until they reach the hillside village of Pingding in Yunlin County, where they converge in the thousands or even millions before crossing the Chingshuei River in south-central Taiwan.

The butterflies then fly to different destinations in central, northern and northeastern Taiwan, including Baguashan in Changhua County and Jhunan in Miaoli County, where they fulfill their most important mission -- to mate and lay their eggs.

This butterfly migrating spectacle is almost unique to Taiwan. The only other place where this can be seen is in Mexico, where the monarch butterfly is the only other butterfly species to migrate like birds and winter in a particular valley, according to local conservation activists. (By Chen Shun-hsieh and Sofia Wu)

Kaohsiung human rights school opens
Kaohsiung, Nov. 19 (CNA) A human rights education center opened in the southern port city of Kaohsiung Thursday, with Mayor Chen Chu and her savior 30 years ago jointly officiating at a ceremony to mark its inauguration.

Renate Mueller-Wollermann, a senior board director of Amnesty International's (AI's) German branch, who was instrumental in getting Chen -- at the time a political dissident -- released from prison in 1986, delivered a speech at the ceremony.

The launch of the Kaohsiung Human Rights Learning Studio, which will serve as a platform for people to exchange dialogue and learn about human rights, was part of a series of activities organized by the city government to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Formosa Incident, also known as the Kaohsiung Incident.

The incident took place Dec. 10, 1979, when a group of dissidents, mostly from Formosa Magazine, held a demonstration commemorating Human Rights Day in the city in an effort to promote and demand democracy in Taiwan.

The then-Kuomintang government cracked down on the protesters and arrested most of Taiwan's opposition political figures.

In the years following the incident, pressure grew on the government to lift martial law and a ban on new political parties and newspapers, leading to the country's democratization.

Chen, one of the founders and writers of the pro-independence Formosa Magazine, was arrested following the incident and given a 12-year jail sentence.

She was six years and two months into her sentence when she was released in 1986 after efforts by Wollermann and other AI authorities. Chen visited Wollermann at her home in Germany the following year.

Wollermann and AI started instigating Chen's case earlier that year, even though they had "no idea where Taiwan was."

Wollermann, who firmly believed Chen was a prisoner of conscience and entitled to freedom of speech, tried every means possible to facilitate Chen's release and even asked the German chancellor of the time to write to the Pope and seek his help in the case.

Chen, Wollermann and other guests at the inauguration hung small cards on a "human rights tree" to express their aspirations for human rights and true democracy.

"If human rights are protected today, it does not guarantee that human rights will exist tomorrow, " Chen said while exhorting the public to cherish the country's hard-earned human rights.

The Kaohsiung city government is organizing the series of activities -- including seminars, a photo exhibition, a concert and a party -- from Nov. 20-Dec. 20 to express appreciation for those who devoted themselves to Taiwan's democratization and "allowed the fire of democracy to keep burning."

Human rights advocates from the United States, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, as well as local activists, will be invited to take part in the events.

Among those invited are former U.S. Congressman Stephen J. Solarz and Rosemary Haddon, an associate professor at Massey University in New Zealand. (By Cheng Che-fon and Deborah Kuo)

Suspected industrial salt taken off store shelves


Taipei, Nov. 18 (CNA) Super store chains, including Carrefour and RT-Mart, have pulled what is believed to be industrial salt from their shelves, as health authorities are investigating a Taoyuan company that is reportedly selling non-edible salt for table use.

Kaohsiung District Court prosecutors, acting on a recent tip-off that some businessmen were illegally selling non-edible industrial salt packaged as a condiment to supermarkets in the Kaohsiung area, traced the product to a sea salt processing company in Taoyuan County.

The investigators demanded that the company stop delivery of the salt to stores and took samples of the company's products for testing.

A spokesman for the prosecutors office said Wednesday that salt for industrial use is usually priced at around NT$3 per kilo, while table salt is sold at NT$25 per kilo in supermarkets. The businessmen may have made profits amounting to tens of millions of New Taiwan dollars over the past years by selling unprocessed sea salt on the market, the spokesman said.

As edible and industrial salt look alike, consumers could have difficulty telling them apart, according to the spokesman.

Non-edible industrial salt is low in iodine, may contain high levels of metal and can cause severe health problems, he added.

The prosecutors office has also advised local health authorities around the island to check the condiment shelves of all food stores and remove suspected salt products.

(By Yang Shu-min and Lillian Lin) Enditem/pc

DOH to push for medical case histories to be written in Chinese


Nov. 18 (CNA) The Department of Health (DOH) is preparing to push to have medical case histories recorded in Chinese on a trial basis, starting next year.

The DOH was censured Wednesday for failing to introduce the program in 2005 as scheduled to allow Chinese-speaking patients to better understand their own conditions.

In Taiwan, medical case histories are written in English.

Director General Shih Chung-liang of the DOH's Department of Medical Affairs said that the program will be implemented on a step-by-step basis, beginning with medical history synopses, then moving on to medical treatment plans, certificates of diagnosis and death, consent forms for surgery, medical examination reports and other documents. (By Chen Li-ting & Bear Lee) Enditem/ pc

Lawmakers freeze fifth of railway agency’s budget
The Legislature's Transportation Committee froze one-fifth of the Taiwan Railway Administration's (TRA) budget on Wednesday after accusing the agency of mismanagement and accumulating huge losses.

The committee also said the agency's budget could only be unfrozen after it submits a special report on how it plans to improve its management and reduce operational losses.

Democratic Progressive Party legislators Wang Sing-nan (王幸男) and Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said the TRA has problems keeping the English translation of station names consistent and correct.

Yeh cited the TRA's Xin Zuoying Station (新左營站) as an example. The name displayed outside the station was "Xin Zuo Ying," but inside the name was "New Zuo Ying," she said.

The TRA's new station at Chang Jung Christian University was spelled "Chang Juag," she said.

Yeh and Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Luo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) also raised the issue of the company's ever-growing operational losses.

"When I was serving at the Taiwan Provincial Assembly, the TRA had a daily loss of NT$3 million [US$93,000]," Yeh said. "The loss jumped to NT$10 million per day when I was a first-term legislator. Now TRA suffers daily losses of NT$30 million."

Many of the TRA's dormitories were now occupied by people who are not even employees, Luo said. The TRA has suffered a drastic decline in passengers, which explained the severe annual losses, Luo said. "Basically, you are able to continue the operation because you just write off the debts," she said. Despite its massive debts, the TRA budgeted NT$2.4 billion for staff bonuses, she said.

TRA Director-General Frank Fan (范植谷) said that the reward system was drawn up based on the principle governing the distribution of bonuses for civil servants.

Goverment urged to build more accessible facilities
People with physical and mental disabilities as well as activists urged government officials on Wednesday to stand by their promises to create a handicap-friendly environment.

Although laws require accessible facilities in public places — whether government-run or privately run — many people with disabilities said they still found many such facilities lacking.

"Every citizen of this country shares equal rights and deserves to be treated with respect — this is what the government and politicians promised us,” May Lien (連美滿), founder of the Nook Association of Social Awareness, told reporters in Taipei on Wednesday.

"But in reality, disabled citizens are more often than not left out," she said.

"When the government builds public toilets 'for the disabled' with doors that are too small for wheelchairs, or when an individual in a wheelchair finds himself or herself in a busy street with cars flying by at the end of a wheelchair ramp, how can we believe that politicians really care for the disabled?" Lien asked.

Free Universe Education Foundation chairman Dan Tang (唐峰正), who is paralyzed from the waist down and depends on his wheelchair to get around, agreed with Lien.

Tang said that the Taipei City Government is spending more than NT$10 billion (US$311 million) to organize the 2010 International Flower Exposition, "but as far as I know, there are no wheelchair accessible facilities in the under-construction venue."

"It's hard for those of us in wheelchairs to go to a concert or a movie because there are often steps in the venues," Tang said.

In addition, besides people who have been disabled for the most of their lives like himself, about 12 percent of Taipei residents are senior citizens, he said.

"These people may need better access to facilities as well, and those who are in power must consider whether the facilities they build meet everyone's needs," Tang said.

Rights groups are planning to raise public awareness of the issue by holding an event at Liberty Square and Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office from 1:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Saturday.

The combination festival and demonstration will include a parade, a flea market, live music and other performances by the mentally and physically challenged.

"We want to demonstrate on Ketagalan Boulevard because it's a place where everyone's voices can be heard, and physically and mentally challenged citizens should not be absent from it," Lien said.

League of Welfare Organizations for the Disabled secretary-general Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲) agreed.

"We must be there so the people in power can see the difficulties that the disabled encounter in their everyday life," Wang said.

"We will make it not only a demonstration, but also a festival, because we want to show everyone that disabled people are just like everybody else: We have talents to show, and we have joy to share," she said.

DPP councilors decry license plate number auctioning
Taipei City councilors accused the city government on Wednesday of "cheating drivers" by continuing to hold license plate number auctions even though the central government is planning to require new plates in 2011.

The councilors demanded the city government provide more information on its license plate policy.

The motor vehicle offices of local governments hold annual write-in auctions for car license plates and drivers can bid for popular number combinations, such as "8888". Prices can go as high as NT$91 million (US$ 2.8 million) in Taipei City.

The Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) plans to overhaul the license plate system by 2011 by adopting new plate designs and it has budgeted more than NT$4.6 billion for the program. Taipei City’s Motor Vehicle Office still plans to hold an auction next year.

Independent Taipei City Councilor Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) criticized the city government, accusing it of "cheating drivers out of their money" by "ignoring the ministry's plan" and continuing to auction off plates to the highest bidder.

"Car plates will expire in 2011 yet the government plans to keep hosting the auction and fool people into spending money on expiring plates," Chen told a press conference at the Taipei City Council.

Chien said drivers who placed bids on certain numbered plates were paying money to be able to use the plates, but the new policy shortened the period of time they can keep them.

"I demand that the government return part of the money to bidders in accordance with the number of years the car plates are used," she said.

Hsu Hsiu-lung (徐秀龍), a division chief at Taipei's Motor Vehicle Office, said the office followed the ministry's regulations.

The plate auction will be held next year as scheduled, Hsu said, but the office will remind drivers about the plate renewal policy on the auction bid application.

Effort needed to prevent sex crimes by minors: TFCF
Shocked by the rising number of sex crimes committed by minors, the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF) yesterday urged the government, parents and schools to put in more effort into preventing such offenses.

"It's both sad and shocking to find, according to figures released by the Ministry of the Interior, that about 60 percent of victims of sexual assault are under the age of 18, while more than 10 percent of the offenders are also minors," Miguel Wang (王明仁), TFCF’s executive director, said at a press conference in Taipei.

Ministry figures show that the percentage of sex crime victims under the age of 18 grew from 56 percent in 2005 to 58 percent this year.

However, the number of sex offenders in the same age group has grown from 153 in 2005 to 751 last year and accounted for 12 percent of all sex offenders in the past year.

As of September, the number of sex offenders who were minors had reached 730, or 13.64 of the total number of sex offenders for that period.

"We're really afraid that the number may surpass 1,000 by the end of this year,” Wang said. "These are horrible numbers, and we call on the public — especially the government, parents and schools — to pay more attention to this issue."

Donghwa University Student Counseling Center director Chen Jo-chang (陳若璋) said minors committed sex offenses because they wanted to have fun — playing group sex games or by trying to imitate adult movies and games — or because they wanted to do something "exciting."

There have also been cases in which victims of sexual assault have turned into offenders by "seeking revenge," he said.

"Studies have found that many offenders come from dysfunctional families or families in which parents often leave their children alone, either because they don't have time or don't care," Chen said.

"School and parental intervention, as well as better psychological counseling for sex crime victims, are very important in preventing sex offenses by minors," Chen said.

The government should improve its rating systems for games and movies to prevent minors from viewing or playing games with sexual content, Wang said.

"It just takes more cautious efforts from us, the adults, to stop tragedies like sex offenses against or by our next generation," Wang said.

Centers for Disease Control overturn ruling on flu victim
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Wednesday overturned its decision regarding urgent medical treatment for a 10-year-old boy suffering from A(H1N1) influenza whose medical condition makes the usual drugs — Tamiflu or Relenza — unsuitable for treating him.

The boy, who is hospitalized at National Taiwan University Hospital, has been diagnosed with swine flu, but he is also suffering from multiple organ failure and internal bleeding.

As of press time on Wednesday, he was on a medical ventilator and in critical condition.

Doctors say Tamiflu or Relenza, the medicines most often used on swine flu patients, would be unsuitable for him.

Huang Li-min (黃立民), a physician from the hospital’s Department of Pediatrics, said he believed that the Department of Health (DOH) possess 40 doses of Peramivir, which is used in the treatment of patients who are not able to safely take Tamiflu or Relenza.

Huang said that as Peramivir had been approved for use in the U.S., it could be considered as an alternative medicine for swine flu patients in Taiwan as well.

Huang said the boy's multiple organ failure was a symptom of A(H1N1) but that the internal bleeding was a pre-existing condition he could not discuss because of patient confidentiality.

However, CDC spokesman Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said that "as human trials for this drug are ongoing, we cannot be 100 percent sure about its safety."

"The sick boy is relatively stable at present so we decided not to approve the request for the drug at the moment," the spokesman said. The CDC had initially said it would approve the drug so doctors could use it to treat the boy.

Huang said he had discussed the matter with CDC officials and agreed that because the boy's medical condition wasn't worsening, it would be better to hold up using the new medicine, for which human experiments have yet to be approved by the health department.

COA to build new aquaculture center
The Council of Agriculture (COA) announced on Wednesday that it would build a new Aquaculture Research and Export Center as part of the Pingtung Agricultural Biotechnology Park.

Officials said that the new center — which is expected to be completed by 2011 — will attract research professionals and help the industry increase its share in the US$30 billion worldwide ornamental fish and fish breeding market.

Park director-general Chen Jen-ping (陳建斌) said Taiwan possesses distinct advantages that will help the industry compete with other Asian countries. He said that authorities were already working with universities and other institutes to redirect aquaculture researchers and students into the area.

Taiwan's indigenous aquaculture creations include the blood parrot fish along with black and white bee shrimps — which a Japanese buyer snapped up for a record-breaking NT$270,000 (US$8,400) this year.

Chen promised that businesses willing to relocate to the new center would enjoy tax benefits as well as avoid export duties. He said the first phase of the center was likely to attract 20 businesses.

Sleep is the best stress-buster, CLA online survey finds
A recent survey by the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) showed that the most common means by which office workers deal with stress is by going to sleep.

In an online survey conducted from September 1-30 by the council's online job bank eJob, about 26 percent of the 4,711 respondents said they deal with stress by going to sleep.

Other popular forms of stress relief included travel and sightseeing (21 percent), sports or recreational activities (12 percent), shopping (11 percent) and wining and dining (9 percent), the survey found.

Asked what kinds of problems they were most concerned with, 20 percent of respondents said depression, followed by insomnia (14 percent), back pain (11 percent) and poor body shape (10 percent).

Council officials said they were concerned that recent job losses caused by the global financial downturn have caused many workers to take on a bigger workload, resulting in increased work-related stress and increases in overtime put in by workers who are not laid off by companies.

Such a stressful work environment could lead to more serious problems, they said.

NCC punishes five cable TV operators
The National Communications Commission (NCC) on Wednesday fined Global View and four other cable TV operators owned by Taiwan Fixed Network (TFN) NT$100,000 each for receiving indirect investment from the Taipei City Government.

The ruling marked the first case in which cable TV services have been punished for violating Article 19 of the Cable Television Act (有線廣播電視法).

The act stipulates that "government and political parties, as well as foundations established with their endowments, and those commissioned by them, may not directly or indirectly invest in cable radio and/or television systems."

NCC spokesperson Chen Jeng-chang (陳正倉) said the commission was informed by a source that the five cable TV services may have received indirect investment from the government. The commission launched an investigation and asked the five to provide a statement.

Aside from the fine, Chen said the operators would have to ensure that the Taipei City Government does not have any investment in their operations. All five have been given a year to address the matter.

The NCC's investigation showed that TFN owns 100 percent of Global View, Phoenix Cable, Union Cable and Media Cable, as well as 29.3 percent of the shares in Mangrove Cable. TFN is owned by Taiwan Mobile and Fubon Financial is an investor in Taiwan Mobile. In 2005, Fubon Financial merged with the Taipei Bank, which was owned by the Taipei City Government. Despite the merger, the city government still owns 14.5 percent of Fubon Financial.

Chen said that investigations into indirect investment in any cable TV service can reach all the way to the ultimate investor. Huang Chin-yi (黃金益), deputy director of the NCC's operational administration, held a preliminary review on the ownership of all cable TV services in 2006 after it found that Eastern Cable (東森) had received investment from the Central Investment Co, which belonged to the Kuomintang (KMT).

"Back then, we only made sure that no company had any direct investment from political parties or the government," Huang said. "On indirect investment, we only asked operators to sign affidavits to guarantee that none of their shareholders were from either party." The commission issued a similar ruling in the case of Elta TV when it applied to become a channel.

About 10 percent of Elta's shares were owned by Chunghwa Telecom and about one-third of Chunghwa Telecom's shares are owned by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

Millions of people may have eaten hazardous salt
The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office on Wednesday launched an investigation into a company for allegedly passing off industrial salt as food-grade salt and selling it on the market for more than three years.

Authorities said the industrial salt — which contains harmful chemicals and minerals — has "likely been consumed by millions of people." Consumers would have been hard pressed to spot the difference between the two types of salt, they said.

Officials from the Kaohsiung County Health Bureau said industrial salt is primarily used for manufacturing and could pose serious risks — including cancer and damage to fetuses — if consumed.

Prosecutor Wang Chun-li (王俊力), also a spokesman for the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office, said at a press conference that the company, Huan Hai Co, bought packets of industrial salt from state-owned Taiyen for NT$3 per kilogram and resold the packets for as much as NT$22 per kilogram.

He said the profit Huan Hai made from selling the salt was likely in the hundreds of millions of NT dollars. More than 250,000 packets have already been sold on the market, he said.

Huan Hai owner Song Chi-chung (宋濟中) was released on NT$300,000 bail. His daughter, who was allegedly working with him, was also questioned by prosecutors.

At a separate setting on Wednesday, Taiyen chairman Hung Hsi-yao (洪璽曜) advised consumers to avoid purchasing food-grade salt originating from China.

He said that as China has strict export regulations on food-grade salt, it was likely that consumers were purchasing industrial salt instead. He said since the salt market opened up to imports in 1994, store shelves have been flooded with different brands and types of salt.

However, he said that consumers should look for the CAS or GMP seals of approval before purchasing such products.

First MOE group visits UK to study education
Ministry of Education (MOE) officials are leading a group of school representatives on a visit to the United Kingdom as part of the preparations for an education white paper that is scheduled for release early next year, a ministry official said on Wednesday.

The group, which consists of representatives from graduate, high, vocational, secondary and primary schools, is being led by Liu Ching-jen, director-general of the MOE's Bureau of International Cultural and Educational Relations, and is scheduled to visit schools in London and Edinburgh, as well as to attend an international education conference for British primary and secondary schools.

Liu said the representatives upon their return will act as "seed teachers," holding workshops and demonstrating their UK findings.

The white paper for international education in primary and secondary schools will be published next year to help lay a solid policy foundation, he added.

In the face of the present trend of globalization, Liu went on, the MOE hopes to cultivate more talent with an international perspective and competitiveness from the elementary school years onward.

He said the UK has demonstrated several good ways of promoting global education, such as setting up the Global Gateway (www.globalgateway.org) website for schools around the world to find other schools with similar interests.

Government to buy rice from polluted paddies at guaranteed prices
The Council of Agriculture (COA) promised on Wednesday to purchase rice at guaranteed prices from Tainan County farmers whose paddies were found to be contaminated with heavy metals and are therefore having difficulty selling their crops.

COA Chairman Chen Wu-hsiung said he will instruct the Agriculture and Food Agency to study the details of purchasing rice from those farmers, though he suggested that rice from paddies in Houbi Township, where excessive amounts of chromium were found, could not have been contaminated and was good of quality.

Chen told the press that there is no such thing as chromium or arsenic contaminated rice. Though such heavy metals in the soil might affect the growth of rice plants, the grains themselves are usually free from contamination, according to the agriculture official.

However, Chen's comments may not alleviate consumer fears of eating contaminated rice, which means there will probably be no market for the second harvest of rice from Houbi Township. The COA is therefore stepping up efforts to help affected rice farmers by purchasing the crops from them at guaranteed prices.

It hopes that the government's purchase, as a gesture of quality guarantee since the rice will be put on the market, will help build confidence among consumers.

A COA spokesman said that local agricultural authorities are providing assistance to farmers by checking the quality of their rice harvest and providing storage space for rice stocks.

The COA also announced that when the second harvest comes in, the government plans to purchase from each hectare of rice paddy 1,440 kilograms of rice at NT$23 per kilo, 800 kilograms at NT$20 per kilo, and 2,360 kilograms at NT$18.6 per kilo.

The second harvest is expected to yield an average 4,500 kilograms of rice.

In the wake of media reports about serious soil pollution in Houbi Township, the Environmental Protection Administration announced on Monday that the agency would destroy 1,280 kilograms of chromium-contaminated rice from the area.

Tsai Hung-the, executive secretary of the EPA's Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Fund, said that tests by the Tainan County government indicated that soil from rice paddies adjacent to a metalmaking slag recycling plant were found to contain excessive amounts of chromium.

Tainan County Magistrate Shu Huang-chih said the same day that further investigation of the soil contamination issue is required, therefore, the county government would invite the Consumers Protection Association and environmental groups to conduct a joint investigation by taking soil samples for analysis.

He said results of the tests will be released to the public by early next week.

Wood carver Shih Chen-yang wins national achievement award
Wood artist Shih Chen-yang won the national achievement award for crafts, reports said on Wednesday. The 64-year-old hails from the center of traditional Taiwanese culture, Lukang in Changhua County. His father was renowned wood artist Shih Kun-yu. The son began his career in wooden sculptures at the age of 10.

Half a century later, he says the work that gave him the most satisfaction was a wooden dragon he made 22 years ago for the Taipei Zoo. The mythical animal took ten months to complete and has been a favorite with children, Shih said.

The two most important people in his artistic life were his father and former Vice President Hsieh Tung-min, Shih said. His father instilled in him the search for excellence, making sure he was employed for the rest of his life. Hsieh inspired him to develop traditional woodworking techniques into a handicraft which should not be kept a secret but taught to the next generations.

For the past five years, Shih has also been devoting his time to teaching at the cultural information department of the National Yunlin University of Science and Technology to pass on the beauty of the art of woodcarving. At the same time, he collaborated with his colleague Li Jung-tsung on a book about the woodcarving art at the famous Lungshan and Tienhou temples in Lukang. The book filled in a lacuna in the study of domestic country art education. Shih said he would use the NT$600,000 award to buy woodworking instruments.

The convener of the jury, Council for Cultural Affairs Minister Hung Ching-feng, said Shih had been chosen for his ample work and his efforts at passing on the tradition to a new generation. Shih defeated 16 veteran competitors to win the achievement award. The CCA will present the award at a ceremony in Tsaotun, Nantou County, on November 28.

Suspect food products removed
An A-Mart supermarket in Yonghe, Taipei County, removed salted chicken products from its shelves on Wednesday after media reports that they contained excessive doses of preservative chemicals.

The county's health department sent inspectors to the store and to its suppliers. If the reports were found to be true, fines ranging from NT$30,000 to NT$150,000 might be levied, officials said.

The reports about the chemicals in the food were the latest in a series of food safety scares hitting products as varied as rice, ducks and salt.

More drug-resistant flu cases found
The Central Epidemics Command Center (CECC) on Tuesday confirmed another three cases of Tamiflu-resistant A(H1N1) influenza, but said that the virus had not spread.

"The most important thing is that all these patients have fully recovered," said Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳), deputy minister for the Department of Health.

Chang said that the three patients included a five-year-old girl and a two-year-old girl in Taipei and a 12-year-old girl in Taichung. Physicians could not confirm whether the three girls were infected by Tamiflu-resistant virus or if the virus went through a mutation process in them.

The deputy minister said that there have been a total of 55 instances of Tamiflu-resistant A(H1N1) in the world and five of them had occurred in Taiwan.

"We have yet to consider potential changes in our Tamiflu policy at the moment," Chang said.

Meanwhile, the military said that approximately 4,000 doses of swine flu vaccine, which will be delivered in the near future, will be given to soldiers who have helped or are helping victims of Typhoon Morakot with reconstruction.

"These soldiers will be the priority, followed by military health workers," said Lin Yao-hsiang (林曜祥), deputy director of the Military Medical Bureau's Medical Affairs Department.

Pilots, sailors and military personnel who work in an interior environment will be next in line for shots after military health workers.

Military personnel under the age of 18 will be the fourth priority, followed by soldiers aged up to 24 years old, and then those aged between 25 and 49. Those older than 50 will be the last priority group for the vaccine.

Lin made his remarks during a press conference at the Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday morning, when he was awarded and recognized as a healthcare role model.

"We are expecting the swine flu vaccines to be delivered to us no later than tomorrow," he said. "Once we receive the vaccines, we will put them to use immediately."

COA lifts ban on pig farms in Taitung County after no A(H1N1) discovered
Pigs on farms in Taitung County have been cleared of A(H1N1) influenza, prompting a lifting of the ban on the sale of pigs to wholesale markets, the government said on Tuesday.

Hsu Tien-lai (許天來), director-general of the Council of Agriculture's (COA) Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, said no A(H1N1) cases were found in the second and third rounds of tests that the bureau conducted on a formerly infected farm in Kuanshan Township (關山) and seven others within a three-kilometer radius.

The A(H1N1) virus was discovered in hundreds of hogs on the Kuanshan Township farm on November 5, in what was said to be a possible jump of the new flu strain from humans to pigs. However, Hsu said it was not clear how the pigs on the farm contracted the virus.

The farm is an enclosed facility and has taken measures to keep out birds, he said, adding that the possibility of infection from other farm animals or people in passing vehicles was reasonably low.

Hsu said that on Monday samples from all the farms in question tested negative for the virus strain, which indicates that the outbreak has been contained. Based on the test results, the bureau on Monday removed the ban on the sale of the farms' pigs to wholesale markets. It also discontinued its monitoring of the area.

Taiwanese student numbers in the US take a sharp drop
The number of Taiwanese students attending U.S. colleges and universities took a sharp drop over the last academic year.

During the 2008 to 2009 school year a total of 28,065 Taiwanese students were in the U.S. — down 1,036 from the 29,001 who attended the year before.

The number of Taiwanese students in the U.S. peaked at 37,581 in 1993 but has been declining steadily over the last decade.

In 1987 Taiwan sent more students to the U.S. than any other country, but was overtaken in 1988 by China.

India now sends the most students — 94,563 — while China is in second place with 81,127. Taiwan has fallen to sixth.

The majority of Taiwanese students in the U.S. study at the graduate level — 54.6 percent — with 25.5 percent being undergraduates, 12.3 percent involved in optional practical training and the rest in other courses.

About 500 US students now attend universities in Taiwan, a number that has been steadily climbing.

The figures are revealed in a new study released this week by the Institute of International Education.

Overall, the number of international students at colleges and universities in the US increased by 8 percent to an all-time high of 671,616 in the 2008 to 2009 academic year.

It is the largest overall increase reported since 1980 to 1981 and marks the third year of significant growth.

The largest growth was in undergraduate enrollments, which increased by 11 percent compared with a 2 percent increase in graduate enrolments.

"This growth was driven largely by increases in undergraduate students from China," the new study reported.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Judith McHale said: "Today more than ever before, study abroad can help students to understand our interconnected world and participate productively in the global economy. The State Department strongly supports study abroad."

Sources connected with the Institute of International Education said that a major reason for the drop in the numbers of Taiwanese students in the US was that Taiwan had, over the last few years, built its own high quality colleges and universities and that there was less need to study abroad.

At the same time, the sources said, many Taiwanese business students who in the past would have chosen to study in the U.S. were now attending higher education facilities in China and Japan.

Reporters tour site for Airport Rail link
Travelers leaving from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport will be able to check their luggage in at Taipei Railway Station before boarding the Airport Rail, the Bureau of High Speed Rail said on Tuesday.

"When the Airport Rail is launched in 2014, passengers can check in and get their boarding passes in the city first," Bureau Director-General Chu Shu (朱旭) said. "The Taoyuan airport will be the fourth system in the world to offer in-town check-in service, following airports in Kuala Lumpar, Hong Kong and Bangkok."

The in-town check-in service will also be available at stations in Wugu (五股) and Taoyuan. The Taoyuan Airport Rail station is in the same building as the Taoyuan High Speed Rail Station.

The Airport Rail system will have a total of 22 stations, 15 of them elevated, and seven underground, including those near Taipei Station, the National Taiwan Sports University, airport terminals I, II and III, the Airport Transit Hotel and Huangbei Road in Zhongli (中壢).

The bureau took reporters on a tour of a construction site near the airport terminals, where it is using tunnel-boring machines to drill six tunnels.

On-site engineers said that construction was different from that used for Taipei's MRT system because the MRT bored mainly through layers of soil, while they had to dig tunnels through gravel.

They also said that construction was more challenging because they had to spend more time taking out the gravel.

The underground section at the airport passes through several sensitive zones, including runways and control towers, but the bureau said it has reinforced protective measures to ensure that construction does not compromise flight safety. The bureau has yet to drill four tunnels in the airport section.

The bureau plans to begin Airport Rail operations from Sanchong (三重) to Zhongli by June 2013, Chu said, while the Taipei-Sanchong section was scheduled to begin operations in October 2014.

Despite a minor delay in construction of the electromechanical systems, Chu said the bureau has not changed its deadlines. The Airport Rail system will offer both express train and general train services, Chu said.

The express train service will go directly from Taipei Station to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in about 35 minutes, he said.

The general train service will stop at every station along the route and will take about 70 minutes to reach the airport from Taipei, he said.

EPA officials investigating dead fish found near wharf
Hundreds of dead fish were discovered on Tuesday on the banks of the Danshui River near the Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕碼頭) in Taipei.

Area residents said that they began noticing the dead fish, which included mullet and milkfish, floating on the surface at around 7 a.m.

Chen Ying-hui (陳穎慧), the neighborhood chief for Guoshun Borough (國順), which borders the river, told reporters he suspected that the fireworks show that took place at the wharf earlier this month could be a factor in the fish kill.

The fireworks show was held by the Taipei City Government to mark the one-year countdown to the 2010 International Flora Exhibition.

Chen said he suspected that the large amounts of chemicals deposited in the river by the fireworks might have polluted the riverbed.

Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) officials said that they hadn't determined the cause of the fish kill, but said it could be because of the rapidly cooling weather, which lowers oxygen levels in the water.

Investigators said they had sent samples of the dead fish to labs for analysis and the reports should be back within the next three days.

A glimpse of French life in Taipei
Taiwan is well-known for its dedication to preserving its rich Chinese culture heritage and its fascinating variety of performing arts, as well as its stunning natural scenery and - most importantly - the open-minded generosity of its people.

It is these unique qualities combined that make living in Taiwan such a great discovery, said Christiane Bonneville, wife of the director of French Institute in Taipei.

"Taiwan's greatest wealth is its people. You have wonderful people, very open and European-like. Living in Taiwan is a really a great discovery," said Mrs. Bonneville.

Having spent some 15 years in other places such as Japan and Brunei in the Far East, Bonneville said she enjoys living in Taiwan very much. "Of course I know I am a foreigner, but I don't feel like a foreigner here," she explained.

Bonneville noted that people here are all very open-minded to for