■ Education
Mandarin proving popular
The number of foreign students seeking education in Taiwan soared by 23 percent to 14,479 last year, mainly as a result of a global trend toward learning Mandarin, the Ministry of Education reported yesterday. Of last year's foreign intake, a total of 9,135 students studied Mandarin, an increase of 953 over the year-earlier level, ministry officials said. Japanese dominated the ranks of Mandarin-learning foreign students, with a total of 1,807 students, followed by Indonesians with 1,279, Americans with 1,252, South Koreans with 1,039 and Vietnamese with 402, the officials said.
■ Animal Care
Stray dog captured
A stray dog nicknamed "209" which had lived on an interchange island on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway for nearly two years was caught by volunteers from the Kaohsiung Concern Stray Animal Association yesterday. It took nine volunteers five hours and three attempts to tranquilize the animal. The volunteers risked their lives to get to the traffic island. Association chairwoman Wang Chun-chin (王春金) said many people had offered to adopt "209" as a result of media reports about the dog. The association will put the dog up for adoption after it has recovered from its ordeal, Wang said. Chang Tung-liang (張棟樑), a captain of the freeway patrol, said later yesterday that the volunteers faced fines ranging between NT$3,000 and NT$6,000 because they had not sought police approval before venturing onto the freeway on foot.
■ Society
Yang Chuan-kwang buried
Taiwan's first Olympic medalist, Yang Chuan-kwang (楊傳廣), who died of a brain hemorrhage on Jan. 28 in his Ventura County, California, home at the age of 73, was buried at Ivy Lawns Memorial Park in Ventura on Saturday after a brief funeral. Officials from Taiwan's National Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles and the Democratic Progressive Party's Western America Chapter attended the funeral and sang the Republic of China's national anthem. Yang won a silver medal in the decathlon at the Rome Olympics in 1960. Rafer Johnson, a US athlete who trained with Yang and won the gold medal in the decathlon in Rome also attended the funeral and recalled his five-decade friendship with Yang.
■ Politics
Yu urges DPP debate
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday that the party should hold open debates among its members ON whether a "one China" framework exists in the Constitution. Former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said last year that such a framework does exist, a comment that drew criticism from within the party. In an radio interview yesterday, Yu said national identity is a matter on the constitutional level and should not be blurred by "playing with words." Saying such a framework exists is wrong because the framework does not reflect a Taiwan-centered value, he said, adding that such a framework will also prevent the nation from becoming a normal country. He added that the party should also hold debate on the "four nos" proposed by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in his inauguration speech, but he did not elaborate. Yu added in the interview that he is in favor of changing the Constitution's general guidelines, which stipulate the nation's title, territory and flag.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
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