Taiwan

A Taiwanese poll shows that abused women are more prone to depression:

More than 80 percent of Taiwanese women who are physically abused by their husbands have a tendency toward depression, with one quarter considered to be seriously at risk of committing suicide, according to the results of a survey (...)conducted by the Modern Women's Foundation.

Surely, the results have nothing surprising. One even wonders why this is newsworthy.

Welfare groups urge more help for disabled people:

Hsieh Dong-ru (謝東儒) the Secretary-General of the League of Welfare Organizations, said "What we have cared most about is which cities and counties have made the most effort to get rid of obstacles for the physically disabled."

He also said that cases such as Yen Hsu-nan (顏旭男) showed that the nation needs to do much more for the disabled. Yen suffered from a genetic disorder in which the bones break easily. Yen died earlier this year from injuries sustained after a student who was carrying him on his back accidentally slipped and fell.

Seoul's way sets a good development precedent: Seoul destroyed a highway in order to free a river flowing through the city. In taiwan, however, "incessant construction is seen as the only indicator of political achievement".

Taiwan is [by comparison to Seoul] backward in its approach to transportation. One example of this is the Huanhe Road project that is to follow the course of the Xindian River in Taipei County. Despite years of public opposition, both Taipei County and the Ministry of the Interior's Construction and Planning Agency are still hoping to build the elevated expressway.

Here is one little peace of good news: the 2005 World Children's Rights Summit was held in Taipei, Taiwan, with 89 children attending:

"Last year the topic was environmental protection, but this year the summit focuses on poverty, war and child abuse," Verall said. "To me, the most important children's right is a sense of security -- that children can feel and be safe wherever they go."

So much must be done before we can offer our children a true sense of security...

Sadly, this could be the continuation on a theme started yesterday (Ignoring suffering for a few gold coins).

The article linked below is about factory chicken farming and its effects on the chickens themselves, the environment and of course on the human who eat their eggs and their meat:

It isn't called "factory farming" merely because those sheds look like factories. Everything about the production method is geared towards turning live animals into machines for converting grain into meat or eggs at the lowest possible cost.

Taiwan: this project is about building a bridge (languistic and otherwise) between the foreigners living in Taiwan and the Taiwanese, so that they can share ideas and work together to promote change.

There is much to do in Taiwan to bring higher levels of awareness on a wide range of important topics, especially Environment protection, Human Rights, self development, etc...

Here are a few links to find out what's been contributed so far:
http://www.wechange.org/taxonomy/term/31 : Taiwan,
http://www.wechange.org/taxonomy/term/45 : Taichung,
and here are lists of members interested in carfree, more livable cities:

Hello,

Wherever you live, if you'd like to take small steps to create cities designed for humans, not automobiles, please join this forum and reply to start the discussion on this topic.

You can see in my profile which cities I'm particularly interested in:
http://www.wechange.org/user/2

If you live there, you can help me to get things started (in French, in English or in Chinese).

(someone here:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002927.html
mentions in the comments of a green city program in Taipei... I'll have to look at it. Unfortunately, my written mandarin is not very good).

If you live elsewhere, we can still cooperate on carfree cities in general...