Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Preparing for the next disaster

Taipei Times Editorial

The torrential rains this week revealed that many parts of the country remain very vulnerable to the forces of nature. In central and southern Taiwan, the storm destroyed bridges and seriously damaged roads, with casualties reported from landslides and flash floods. In the north, the public witnessed extensive flooding, which inundated homes and vehicles and damaged roads following an overnight deluge on Tuesday.

However, while one may quickly blame Mother Nature for spewing fury and showing no mercy over vast swathes of land, there are always actions people could take to prepare for such calamities, hence the role of the government, whose priority should be to protect the public’s well-being and keep people from harm by mitigating dangers and damage efficaciously and expeditiously.

A Strange Justice in Taiwan's Chen Shui-bian Case

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Scroll back down to April 13, and see the concusion of how fingers are pointing at the prosecutors for cutting what some may call corrupt deals to get and keep Chen Shui-bian in jail. The only two real witnesses in Chen's case that have been used to convict him on accepting bribes are Jeffrey Koo Jr. and Diana Chen.

Majority oppose US beef imports deal: poll

Taipei Times

More than 60 percent of the public does not accept easing the ban on imports of US meat products containing the livestock feed additive ractopamine as a prerequisite to resuming trade negotiations between Taiwan and the US, a public opinion survey found.

According to the poll results released by Taiwan Indicators Research Survey (TIRS) yesterday, 63.4 percent of respondents disagreed with the government’s claim that easing the ban on US beef imports was necessary for the resumption of Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) negotiations with the US.

Agriculture should not be ignored

Du Yu 杜宇

Recently, heavy rainfall caused the highway between Suao and Hualien to collapse again, cutting off traffic and immediately impacting the transportation of agricultural products out of Hualien.

In order to ensure that farmers did not see their precious crops go to waste, local students and civic groups started an initiative in which train passengers helped transport vegetables by rail in the hope of alleviating some of the farmers’ distribution problems. This initiative garnered support from the public, but was also met with some resistance from farmers who believed it could cause wholesalers to stop buying their produce, which would result in the collapse of local vegetable prices.

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