Taipei, July 31 (CNA) Taiwan will begin from Aug. 1 giving every hog aged between 12 to 14 weeks vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine (BAPHIQ) announced Friday. BAPHIQ Deputy Director General Huang Kuo-ching said that the measure was taken to prevent the disease virus from [...]

Taipei, July 31 (CNA) The Consumers’ Foundation charged Friday that the nonprofit Language Training and Testing Center has been gouging people taking Taiwan’s main English proficiency test by collecting two to four times the cost of administering the exam. But the head of the center’s General English Proficiency Test (GEPT) Department dismissed the complaint, saying [...]

Taipei, July 31 (CNA) It remains far from clear how Washington’s satisfaction with the evolution of the cross-Taiwan Strait relationship will translate into new polices to bolster U.S.-Taiwan economic ties, the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) said Friday. In a report summarizing its “doorknock” trip to Washington to discuss U.S.-Taiwan relations, the U.S. trade group [...]

Former Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Chang Sho-wen’s (張碩文) father canceled his KMT party membership on Thursday to run in the Yunlin County legislative by-election as an independent. The move came after the KMT banned him from running.Yunlin Irrigation Association director Chang Hui-yuan (張輝元) said in a written statement that he would run in the by-election as [...]

Seven Taiwanese universities were included in the world’s top 500 for academic performance in a local ranking released on Thursday. Two universities — National Central University (NCU) and Chang Gung University — joined National Taiwan University (NTU) and four other Taiwanese universities on the list this year, said Huang Mu-hsuan (黃慕萱), a research fellow at [...]

Two Taiwanese men have been detained by Mexican and Costa Rican authorities over suspected human trafficking, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday. The ministry is in close contact with its foreign counterparts to ensure the two men are being treated in a humane manner, Department of Central and South American Affairs Director-General Joseph [...]

Doctors said on Thursday that a government plan to divide patients into Diagnosis-related Groups from September 1 could cost lives. The Bureau for National Health Insurance is planning to introduce the DRGs based on a system already in use in the United States, classifying hospital patients into 967 groups over the next six years. Each [...]

The former first family’s bookkeeper Chen Chen-hui (陳鎮慧) on Thursday admitted to forgery and helping the family embezzle funds from the presidential state affairs fund in her final court appearance before the verdict will be announced in September. Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓) scheduled Thursday’s session to hear closing arguments from Chen Chen-hui, her lawyer [...]

The Control Yuan voted on Thursday to impeach former vice minister of economic affairs (MOEA) Hou Ho-hsiung (侯和雄) for influence peddling, leaking business intelligence and lining the pockets of businessmen during his term in office. The watchdog body, which is responsible for investigating corruption in government, voted 10-2 to impeach Hou.In the same case, the [...]

The nation will see a 3.8 percent retraction in the scale of government spending next year because of an expected decrease of 7.3 percent in annual tax revenues this year, Minister of the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) Shih Su-mei (石素梅) said on Thursday. Shih made the remarks after the Cabinet drew up [...]