■ Civic groups
MOI to revise rules
The Ministry of the Interior is planning to ease the requirements to charter national civic groups. The ministry will revise the Regulations for Registration of Social Entities (社會團體許可立案作業規定) with regard to the management of civic groups. The overhaul is expected to delete the requirement of including cities with the status of a special municipality. The stipulations covering founding members' household registration will be changed from 11 different areas to seven, and those seven locations could just be the counties and cities where the members work. Another regulation, which stipulates that a group that wishes to apply as a city or county-wide civic group needs the household registrations of its founding members to be located in more than half of a city or a county's villages and townships, is also expected to be dropped.
■ Culture
Nobel winner in Taoyuan
West Indian dramatist and poet Derek Walcott, winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize for literature, was scheduled to appear at a colloquium at Yuan Ze University in Taoyuan yesterday afternoon. Walcott, who is also a painter and a professor at a number of prestigious universities in the US, was expected to have a "transcultural dialogue" with Far East Group Chairman Tony Hsu and several renowned writers in Taiwan, including Chen Juo-hsi, at the colloquium. Walcott's writings are rich in cultural nuance, employing such topics as racial issues, identity and alienation of cultures, as well as the position of languages. Walcott, who skillfully fuses folk island culture with the classical and avant-garde in his poems, could be an encouragement to Taiwan's literary circles at a time when Taiwan is enthusiastically promoting maritime culture, said a spokesman for the Kaohsiung City Government, which invited Walcott to Taiwan to take part in the 2005 World Poetry Festival in Kaohsiung.
■ Transit
MRT contract awarded
Taipei Rapid Transit Corp yesterday announced it had contracted Continental Engineering Corp (大陸工程) to construct a 2.7km-long section of the MRT's Hsinyi Line (信義線) Construction will be launched next month, at the earliest. The MRT company said that if they can contract out another section on the Hsinyi line by March this year, the 6.4km-long Hsinyi line will be completed by 2011. Once complete, the west-east line will cut the traveling time between Taipei Main Station and Taipei 101 or the World Trade Center to 11 minutes. Continental Engineering Corp, which won the NT$8.74 billion contract, said that the section starts at the Hsinyi-Yungkang intersection and ends at Hsinyi-Anhe intersection. The section will run through Daan Station on the Muzha Line while another station will be established at Ta-an Forest Park.
■ Health
Officials receive awards
At the Department of Health's 34th anniversary yesterday, Minister of Health Hou Sheng-mou (侯勝茂) presented the Minister Award to former minister Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) and former director-general of the Center for Disease Control, Su Ih-jen (蘇益仁), for their dedication to health promotion during their term. Hou lauded Chen for launching the reform of the National Health Insurance, saying that Chen has helped enhance the quality of medical service by establishing family doctor and referral systems. Su, meanwhile, was honored for establishing a hospital reporting network to fight SARS, thereby laying the groundwork for flu prevention.
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Starlux Airlines on Tuesday announced it is to launch new direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Ontario, California, on June 2. The carrier said it plans to deploy the new-generation Airbus A350 on the Taipei-Ontario route. The Airbus A350 features a total of 306 seats, including four in first class, 26 in business class, 36 in premium economy and 240 in economy. According to Starlux’s initial schedule, four flights would run between Taoyuan and Ontario per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flights are to depart from Taoyuan at 8:05pm and arrive in California at 5:05pm (local time), while return flights
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
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