■ DEFENSE
MND announces reshuffle
The Ministry of National Defense (MND) announced a senior military reshuffle on Monday, with the deputy minister of defense, Admiral Lin Chen-yi (林鎮夷), promoted to the post of chief of the general staff. Lin, a naval academy graduate who rose through the ranks to reach the navy's top office before assuming his current post, will replace General Hou Shou-yeh (霍守業), who has been tapped to serve as a strategic adviser to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). Meanwhile, Army Commanding General Chao Shih-chang (趙世璋) will succeed Lin as deputy minister of defense. Chao's position will be filled by Yang Tien-hsiao (楊天嘯), incumbent head of the ministry's General Political Warfare Bureau. The MND said the personnel changes would take effect tomorrow.
■ DIPLOMACY
Lai to attend St Lucia day
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has named Judicial Yuan President Lai In-jaw (賴英照) as his special envoy to attend the 30th Independence Day celebrations in St Lucia, one of the nation's Caribbean diplomatic allies. Diego Chou (周麟), deputy director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department of Central and South American Affairs, said the delegation attending the Feb. 22 celebration would include Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Javier Hou (侯清山), who would depart for St Lucia on Feb. 19. The ministry said Lai would be the highest-ranking official from Taiwan to visit the Caribbean island nation since the two countries restored diplomatic relations in April 2007. St Lucia established official relations with Taiwan in 1984 but the friendship was terminated in 1997 when St Lucia's government at the time switched diplomatic recognition to China.
■ POLITICS
Winkler eyes legislature
Robin Winkler, an environmentalist and founder of Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association (WaH), said yesterday he was bidding for the Green Party Taiwan's (GPT) nomination for the legislative by-election in Taipei City's sixth electoral district. The by-election is being held after former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Diane Lee (李慶安) resigned over allegations she still holds US citizenship. The Nationality Act (國籍法) prohibits government officials from possessing foreign citizenship. Winkler, who gave up his US citizenship in 2003 to become a naturalized Taiwanese, is a lawyer by occupation. Winkler, who founded WaH in 1993, is an avid lobbyist for the rights of animals and plants against developing constructions. He also served one term as a member of the Environmental Protection Administration's environmental impact assessment panel. Other GPT primary candidates include GPT Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲), as well as the party's founding member Chang Shu-mei (張淑玫).
■ ENVIRONMENT
Group plans gene bank
An environmental protection association in Taipei County is promoting a project to establish the nation's first gene bank for native aquatic and wetland plants in Wugu Township (五股). The Taipei County Sustainable and Environmental Development Association floated the concept of setting up the gene bank in line with the theme for World Wetlands Day 2009 — Upstream-Downstream: Wetlands Connect Us All, association president Chen Mu-cheng said. Chen said the association hoped the gene bank could help increase public awareness of the fact that the nation's aquatic plants are fast-disappearing and enhance public understanding of people and wetlands.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
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