The elections on Saturday were the largest news story of the week. In today's Week in Review, we take a look at some of the other stories that were in the news.
1)
One of the stories we looked at this past week was a story involving Taiwan and China discussing the possibility of allowing Chinese tourists to stop over in Taiwan before flying on to another country. The Taipei-based Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) spoke about the discussions on Thursday.
The SEF is a semi-official organization in charge of cross-strait exchanges in the absence of official ties between the two sides. It held talks with its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, in Beijing on Wednesday.
The SEF called on China to come up with a feasibility plan as soon as possible.
In a press release, the SEF said that allowing Chinese tourists to make connections in Taiwan would help promote civilian exchanges and improve cross-strait ties.
2)
Also this past week, a bill governing the rights of disabled people is set to take effect this coming Wednesday.
The bill is aimed at protecting the rights of the 1.12 million mentally and physically challenged people living in Taiwan.
To further promote the rights of the disabled, the Cabinet passed several additional related laws on Thursday. Those allow for the establishment of a disabled rights task force and improvements to the quality of accessible facilities. The additional laws still need approval from the legislature.
At a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, Premier Jiang Yi-huah said Taiwan is hoping to keep up with the pace of advances in disabled rights around the world so that people with disabilities in Taiwan will be able to live up to their potential.
Under current rules in Taiwan, disabled people must make up at least 3% of employees in government agencies, public schools and state-run enterprises that have 34 or more employees.
3)
And finally this past week, an autistic artist from Taiwan has presented Pope Francis with a painting. The interaction took place as the Vatican held it’s first-ever conference on autism last weekend. The event was attended by some 7,000 people, including children with autism and their families.
The Taiwanese artist – Leland Lee – is known for his vibrant paintings which use bright colors. After he presented the painting, entitled “Pope Francis”, the Pope responded by praying over the artist and making a sign of the cross on his forehead. The Pope gave Lee a hug, saying he would pray for the artist, and asking the artist to pray for him as well.
The Vatican is the only nation in Europe which holds official diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (ROC), which is the official name of Taiwan.