Taipei and the Chinese city of Xian launched a cooperative effort yesterday that will see a horticultural exposition held in Xian three days after the Taipei International Flora Expo concludes in April next year.
As a result of the joint effort and through exchanges between the two cities, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said he hoped environmental protection would take root and a win-win scenario would be created.
“To join heaven and man is an important concept of the thousands-year-old history of the Chinese nation,” Hau said. “To attach great importance to the environment is to realize such a concept.”
PHOTO:CNA
Xian Mayor Chen Baogen (陳寶根) said the joint effort bore significant meaning in the cooperation and exchange between “Shaanxi Province and Taiwan, and Xian and Taipei.”
Despite the warm words inside, the Chinese delegation were greeted by Falun Gong practitioners on their way out of the hotel where the announcement was made.
Calling Shaanxi Vice Governor and acting Governor Zhao Zhengyong (趙正永) the “scum of human rights,” the protesters said Zhao was not welcome in Taiwan because he had ordered the killing of many Falun Gong members.
Strangely enough, the protesters were not stopped by city personnel or the Chinese delegation, but rather by the bus driver transporting the Chinese delegation.
They engaged in physical clashes when the driver tried to stop the protesters from holding a banner that read “Persecution of Falun Gong, Zhao Zhengyong, you are charged with a criminal offense.”
On Monday, Falun Gong members filed a complaint at the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office and they planned to sue Chinese Administration of Religious Affairs Director Wang Zuoan (王作安) today.
The 500-member delegation, led by Zhao, is the largest and highest-ranking delegation from the northwestern Chinese province to have visited Taiwan, and is scheduled to attend various events at this year's Taiwan-Shaanxi Week, held between yesterday and Sunday.
During a meeting with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Honorary Chairman Wu Po-hsiung (吳伯雄), Zhao said his delegation — the first Chinese group to visit Taiwan since the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework agreement (ECFA) took effect on Sunday — will do its best to help implement the trade pact.
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
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday appealed to the authorities to release former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) from pretrial detention amid conflicting reports about his health. The TPP at a news conference on Thursday said that Ko should be released to a hospital for treatment, adding that he has blood in his urine and had spells of pain and nausea followed by vomiting over the past three months. Hsieh Yen-yau (謝炎堯), a retired professor of internal medicine and Ko’s former teacher, said that Ko’s symptoms aligned with gallstones, kidney inflammation and potentially dangerous heart conditions. Ko, charged with
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