■Elections
Candidates' rank determined
Draws for polling numbers for mayoral and councilor candidates in the country's top two municipalities were held yesterday in Taipei and Kaohsiung cities. The results determine a candidate's placement on the ballot. In Taipei, Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) drew the No. 2 spot while his DPP rival Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) drew No. 1 after an official from the election committee drew on his behalf. In Kaohsiung, where there are five candidates in the race for the top job at city hall, Shih Ming-teh (施明德), who was absent and had his number drawn by an election commission official, got No. 1, followed in order by Chang Po-ya (張博雅), Huang Tien-sheng (黃天生), Huang Chun-ying (黃俊英) and Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷). As for city council elections, 115 candidates are vying for 52 seats in Taipei City and 114 candidates are fighting for 44 seats in Kaohsiung. The elections will be held Dec 7.
■ Crime
Counterfeiting charges laid
Law-enforcement agents arrested four people yesterday for allegedly counterfeiting NT$1,000 bank notes and seized equipment and bogus currency, a spokesman for the Investigation Bureau under the Ministry of Justice announced. Acting on a tip-off and following a lengthy investigation, prosecutors and investigators raided two locations in northern Taipei and Taoyuan counties where Ho Chin-teh (何金德), Lu Sun-yung (呂森永), Chang Yu-hung (張愈弘) and Feng Ming-cheng (馮明政) were found with 760 counterfeit NT$1,000 notes along with a computer and a color printer. The ring, led by Ho, allegedly sold bogus notes to downstream buyers, at a rate of one to three or one to four, who in turn passed the bills at grocery stores, traditional markets and street stands in central Taichung, Changhua and southern Kaohsiung counties.
■ Diplomacy
Chen offers help to ally
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that Taiwan is willing to help Sao Tome and Principe's fight against malaria. Chen made the remark at the Presidential Office when he received Sao Tome and Principe Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Mateus Meira Rita, who arrived Wednesday for a five-day visit. The president said he was concerned about the nation, which is battling malaria by trying to eradicate mosquitoes. Chen said that Taiwan has already sent experts to the West African country, who have mapped out a mosquito-killing plan they will submit to the local authorities. Rita said Taiwan is the major cooperation partner of Sao Tome and Principe and told Chen that his country appreciates the assistance. Taiwan's aid, he said, is used to fight malaria and provide drinking water to residents.
■ Diplomacy
GIO solicits support
Government Information Office (GIO) Deputy Director-General Frederic Chang (張平男) called Thursday for international support for Taiwan, saying that a hegemonic China has never ceased in its efforts to isolate democratic Taiwan on the world stage. Chang made the remarks during a gathering in Geneva with 20 representatives from the media, academia and government. Stressing that Taiwan, a full-fledged democracy, deserves greater support from the international community, Chang invited foreign friends to pay fact-finding visits to the country. According to the GIO deputy chief, various European parliamentarians showed a high degree of interest in issues related to direct links.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not