英倫翻譯社/ Trsmaster

Taipei, Dec. 15 (CNA) Taiwan should properly prepare for the challenge its aging population poses to its economy and industrial development, Vice President Vincent Siew said Thursday. With Taiwan's birth rate now at 1.1 percent, the country will likely replace Japan as the world's most aged nation in 22 years, Siew said at a forum that featured Christopher A. Pissarides, a co-winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in economics. The event was organized by the Economic Daily News. Siew said Taiwan needs to enhance the employment aptitude of its young people, considering that changes in the population structure may alter the industrial structure and lead to structural unemployment. Since the 2008 global financial crisis, the unemployment rates in countries around the world have increased, with young workers becoming the most vulnerable, he noted. Between 2008 and 2009, the global jobless rate among young people recorded the largest increase in the past 20 years, a serious problem that has triggered waves of social protests across the Middle East, Europe and the United States, he said. The issue has been highlighted in Time magazine, which named "The Protester" as its 2011 Person of the Year, Siew said. Thanks to various economic stimulus measures and job promotion programs adopted by the Taiwan government over the past three years, the country's misery index (the sum of the unemployment rate and inflation rate) stood at just 6.2 percent in 2010, one of the lowest in the world, he said. (By Lin Hui-chun and Y.F. Low)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen discussed her dream to promote Taiwan’s biotechnology industry with American Institute in Taiwan Director Stephen Young after leaving the Cabinet in 2007, reports said Thursday.

Prosecutors started investigating the Yu Chang Biologics Co. case this week after accusations from the ruling Kuomintang that Tsai might have been guilty of conflict of interest by approving government investment in the company when she knew she would become the company’s chairwoman.

Tsai denies the allegations, saying she was not involved in the investment project while she was vice premier and was only invited by scientists to join Yu Chang months after leaving government.

A recent Chinese-language book titled ‘WikiLeaks Taiwan’ says that Tsai had a long discussion with Young after she left government. She told him how she felt it was important to have legislation giving tax incentives and other protection measures to biotechnology research and technology.

A law governing the production of new drugs by the biotechnology sector passed in June 2007 was largely her work, Tsai reportedly told Young. She looked at US legislation from the 1990s and worked out a new version with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng, the book said.

According to the book, Tsai’s key ally was Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey, reportedly one of the scientists who invited her to become Yu Chang Chairwoman. AIT described the conversation between Tsai and Young as the most honest and open in ten years. She told Young she was planning to meet with leading scientists and entrepreneurs in the biotechnology sector during a visit to the United States later that year.

Tsai said the most important point was that Taiwan’s biotech sector should be able to produce drugs that were marketable overseas, according to the book.

The DPP has strongly denied allegations that Tsai was already in charge of the government’s biotech efforts when she approved the investment. The Council for Economic Planning and Development, which also supervises the National Development Fund, was in charge, the DPP said, adding that Tsai had no inkling at the time that she once would chair a biotechnology firm.

The book quotes AIT records as saying that Tsai told Young that during her time as vice premier, she cooperated with the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the National Science Council and the Academia Sinica to promote Taiwan’s biotech sector.

The U.S. government should pay $56 million to a family of Korean origin that lost four members when a military jet crashed into their San Diego home in 2008, an attorney told a judge Wednesday.

The case is unique because the federal government has acknowledged responsibility but is disputing how much money should be given to the extended family for the death of two children, their mother and grandmother.

"The magnitude of the loss is tremendous," attorney Brian Panish said during closing arguments of a federal trial over the damages caused by the accident the Marine Corps has blamed on multiple mistakes.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller will make the final decision but did not say after closing arguments ended when he would issue his ruling.

Department of Justice attorneys put the economic losses based largely on the future income of the mother at roughly $1 million. They left it up to Miller to decide how much to give the family for the loss of love and companionship.

The victims cannot seek compensation for grief, suffering or punitive damages.

Panish called for Don Yoon to receive $25 million for the loss of his 36-year-old wife, Youngmi Lee Yoon, and their two baby daughters. His mother-in-law also perished in the accident, which set his home ablaze.

His father-in-law would get $20 million for the loss of his wife and his oldest daughter.

During the trial, Panish presented testimony of relatives and photographs to depict a close-knit family originating in a small Korean farming community, where Youngmi's mother, Seokim Kim Lee, was the pillar, taking care of people in her village and her four children, along with her husband, a cattle farmer.

Youngmi came to the United States in 2004 to marry Yoon.

taff Writer

The three presidential candidates sat down separately yesterday with representatives of the cultural world to explain their culture policies.

Kuomintang candidate President Ma Ying-jeou, Democratic Progressive Party candidate Tsai Ing-wen and People First Party Chairman James Soong each chose a different hour yesterday afternoon to present their views and reply to questions from culture leaders.

The talks, held at Taipei’s Shih Hsin University, were broadcast live on television.

Tsai, who came first, condemned the abuse of culture by politics. Cultural attachés at Taiwan’s overseas representative offices had to have a background in culture.

She said Taiwan should not compete with China in trying to spread Chinese culture overseas. “Taiwan culture has its own characteristic elements,” she said. Chinese culture in Taiwan had become one element of a wider Taiwanese culture, and that was what Taiwan Institutes overseas needed to emphasize, Tsai said.

The opposition candidate also condemned the quest to have all cultural activities make a profit. The culture’s artistic values needed to be considered above all, she said.

Tsai also advocated the drawing up of a “Basic Culture Law” to encourage cultural talent to stay in Taiwan.

Soong criticized previous administrations for failing to take cultural policies seriously. The eight years of DPP government saw five Council for Cultural Affairs ministers, while in three years of Ma administration, there had already been three ministers, he said.

GENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

MOSCOW

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Thursday said he was pleased with the protest wave that shook his 12-year domination of Russia but rejected opposition claims that parliamentary elections were rigged.

In his annual phone-in session, Putin sought to show he was relaxed about the mass protests alleging fraud in parliamentary polls that have posed an unexpected challenge ahead of his planned return to the Kremlin in 2012.

But he also mocked the white ribbon that the protestors have used as their symbol -- saying he thought it was part of an anti-AIDS campaign -- and alleged that some had even been paid by the United States.

“I saw on television mostly young, active people clearly expressing their position. I am pleased to see this,” Putin said in his first reaction to the demonstrations over the December 4 polls.

“And if this is the result of the Putin regime, than this is good. I see nothing extraordinary about it.”

Tens of thousands of people protested on Saturday in Moscow in a sanctioned protest that was Russia’s biggest show of popular discontent since the turbulent 1990s. The rally was peaceful although protests earlier in the week ended in hundreds of arrests.

Putin -- who now faces three tricky months before the March presidential elections -- described the protests as normal but also warned they had to take place within the framework of the law.