← EDUCATION
Dictionary wins praise
The online Mandarin Chinese dictionary compiled by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education is a powerful tool for foreign students learning Chinese, a senior Belgian journalist said on Thursday. Catherine Vuylsteke, the Asian page editor of the Belgian daily De Morgen, is now studying Chinese at Taiwan’s National Cheng Kung University. Vuylsteke expressed her appreciation of the dictionary in an e-mail to the Taipei Representative Office in Belgium. The dictionary contains nearly 170,000 entries and has become the biggest Chinese dictionary data bank in the world, according to ministry officials. The dictionary allows input using the Zhuyin Fuhao (注音符號, commonly known as “bopomofo”) system, and provides definitions in Chinese. The dictionary can be found online at dict.revised.moe.edu.tw.
■ AGRICULTURE
Chinese buy produce
A group of buyers from China agreed yesterday to purchase NT$10 million (US$313,000) worth of agricultural products from the Tsou-Ma-Lai Recreational Farm in Tainan County. The delegation, from Guangdong Province’s agricultural and fishing institutions, signed an agreement with the Tainan County Farmers’ Association to buy pineapples, guavas, sugar apples and other produce grown in the county. The agreement was signed at a trade fair that is being held as part of a Taiwan-Guangdong week of activities and was witnessed by Guangdong Provincial Governor Huang Huahua (黃華華) and Taiwan’s People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜). Soong said he hoped that Guangdong buyers would continue to contribute to bilateral industrial and agricultural cooperation.
■EDUCATION
Students mull legal action
An association of Taiwanese students studying in China threatened yesterday to take legal action against a newly approved package of legal amendments that restrict the recognition of medical diplomas conferred by schools in China. Chen Cheng-teng (陳正騰), deputy head of the Taiwan Student Union said the restrictions would prevent Taiwanese graduates of Chinese medical colleges from working in Taiwan in the future. “Such a restriction seriously infringes upon their legitimate rights as Republic of China citizens to work,” Chen said. “Our association will retain a lawyer to file for a constitutional interpretation of the restriction from the Justices of the Constitutional Court.” He added his group will also file an administrative lawsuit against newly passed regulations that ban retroactive recognition of accreditation by 41 selected Chinese colleges and universities.
■POLITICS
Su starts donation drive
The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Taipei mayoral candidate, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), started a donation drive for his election campaign yesterday. “Small donations represent the voters’ support, and we will make sure each donation is used in election campaigns,” Su said. He also pledged to run a different election campaign by not putting campaign flags around the city, not soliciting votes by phone and not writing any rubber checks during the campaign. He said he was confident of grabbing at least 800,000 votes. “There are over two million votes in Taipei City, and my goal is to get 800,000 votes in the election,” he said. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), who is seeking re-election, shrugged off Su’s comments. “I am confident about winning the election and receiving more votes than Su. That’s my estimation,” he said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS