■FISHING
No approval required
The fishing industry agreement Taiwan and China seek to sign next month does not need to be reviewed by the legislature because it does not involve legal revision of the cross-strait statute, Mainland Affairs Council Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said yesterday. Because President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has pledged not to further open the local market to Chinese workers, Lai said the agreement did not have anything to do with allowing more Chinese workers to enter Taiwan. Chinese fishermen have been allowed to work on deep-sea fishing boats since 1993 and to stay at temporary shelters on land since 2004. There are now about 10,000 Chinese fishermen working on deep-sea fishing boats and between 4,500 and 5,000 on inshore fishing boats. The number of fishermen from other foreign countries is about 4,700. While the next round of cross-strait high-level talks are set to take place in Taichung City next month, the two sides will address four issues: fishing industry cooperation, quality checks of agricultural products, cross-strait cooperation in inspection and certification and avoiding double taxation.
■EDUCATION
Hakka exam to pay off
In an effort to promote the Hakka language, the Council for Hakka Affairs (CHA) said that the government would offer grants for junior high school and elementary students who pass a Hakka examination. The results of this year’s exam, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, will be announced on Jan. 15 and those who pass the exam will be eligible for the grants, Minister of Hakka Affairs Huang Yu-cheng (黃玉振) said. Only elementary and junior high school students are eligible for the awards, Huang said. Anyone passing the elementary level test will receive NT$1,000, while NT$5,000 and NT$10,000 will be given to those who pass the intermediate and upper-intermediate level tests respectively.
■DIPLOMACY
New trade offices planned
Taiwan plans to set up trade offices in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, which may signal a breakthrough in the country’s bid to participate in ASEAN, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Justin Chou (周守訓) said yesterday. At least one of the offices will be established by the end of the year, said Chou, who serves as a convener of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign and National Defense Committee. Chou said the country had difficulty setting up trade offices in these three countries in the past because of China’s obstruction. However, he said that because cross-strait relations have improved significantly over the past year, ASEAN members are now more willing to develop economic and trade relations. This shows that it is not impossible for the country to be included in ASEAN in the future, he said.
■AGRICULTURE
COA to buy oranges
The Council of Agriculture (COA) will purchase oranges from farmers for domestic use and expand exports to China as part of efforts to stabilize prices in anticipation of an oversupply in the December and January harvest season, officials said yesterday. Orange production is estimated to total 210,000 tonnes this year, said Hsu Han-ching (許漢卿), chief secretary of the COA’s Agriculture and Food Agency. The council will purchase 20,000 tonnes of the fruit, half of which will be used to make juice for schoolchildren, while the other half will be put into cold storage, he said. Meanwhile, the country will export 1,870 tonnes of oranges to China by the end of the year, up from 1,250 tonnes last year.
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
RSS