■Health
Smokers number 4.5 million
Taiwan has 4.5 million smokers, according to a report released yesterday by the private Chi Mei Foundation Medical Center. The report said that about 10,000 Taiwanese people die from smoking-related illnesses each year and that male smokers outnumber female smokers. Huang Shou-cheng (黃守正), director of the center's preventive medicine department, said 47 percent of local men aged 18 and over smoke while only 5 percent of women in this age group smoke. Meanwhile, Huang said, 11 percent of males and 3 percent of females in the 12 to 17 age group smoke. The Chi Mei medical center launched a "quit smoking" class three years ago. Huang said 20 percent of those who attend the class have managed to quit the habit in six weeks through the use of medication and psychological treatment.
■ Diplomacy
Wang meets with Japanese
Legislative Yuan President Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) conferred with Japanese Upper House President Hiroyuki Kurata in Tokyo yesterday on the promotion of substantive relations between Taiwan and Japan. He also met with several other Japanese parliamentarians belonging to the pro-Taiwan "Parliamentarian Council for Japan-Republic of China Relations" over lunch to discuss a broad range of issues of mutual concern. The lunch meeting was chaired by Lower House member Sadanori Yamanaka, chairman of the council and a former Defense Agency director-general. The topics raised during his trip included the setting up of a free trade agreement, the establishment of a security dialogue mechanism, aviation, repayment of war-time deposits by Taiwanese and the promotion of parliamentarian exchange visits. Wang's mission is made up of legislators from the ruling DPP and the opposition KMT, PFP and TSU. They arrived in Tokyo Sunday and will return to Taipei today.
■ Health
HIV cases break 4,000 mark
The number of HIV carriers in Taiwan has broken the 4,000 mark, with 36 percent of the victims aged between 20 and 29, the Cabinet-level Department of Health (DOH) reported yesterday. As of the end of October, 4,217 Taiwan nationals had tested HIV positive, while 373 foreigners in Taiwan had also been confirmed HIV positive, according to DOH tallies. Among the foreign carriers, Thai citizens formed the largest national group, followed by those from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and mainland China, in that order. DOH tallies show that 109 Taiwan married couples and 20 inter-racial couples were infected with HIV -- the virus that causes the deadly AIDS -- while eight babies have been born with the virus.
■ Goverment
Cabinet to address loan ratio
Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday that the Cabinet will convene a national meeting on agriculture Nov. 30 to find solutions for the problematic monetary system of the agricultural sector. Problems with the credit departments of farmers' and fishermen's associations came to the surface in August last year when the Monetary Reconstruction Fund under the Cabinet took over the management of 36 credit cooperatives with extremely high overdue loan ratios. Government statistics released in late September showed that the average overdue loan ratio of the 260 local credit cooperatives in the country was around 20 percent and the bad loans were estimated to have surpassed NT$130 billion.
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