■ Public Affairs
Anti-war protest planned
Several civic organizations are planning to stage a demonstration on Saturday in conjunction with a global rally against a possible US-led war on Iraq. An official
of the Labor Rights Asso-ciation said yesterday that his group and others had completed a joint declara-tion against the war and
will present it to the American Institute in Taiwan. The declaration states their opposition to any supportive measures by Taiwan's government to a US-lead invasion of Iraq, or to the solution of interna-tional disputes by war. The declaration also sets forth
its support for a peaceful solution by the UN to the Iraq problem. The official said the groups will solicit public support through the Internet and hope to mobil-ize at least 150 people to stage a protest in front of the AIT office in Taipei.
■ Culture
Tchen to visit Europe
Council for Cultural Affairs Chairwoman Tchen Yu-chiou (陳郁秀) said yesterday she will head a delegation of government officials and prominent artists which will visit Europe next week to promote cultural exchanges. "The visit is also aimed at learning from European experience in development of the creative cultural industry," Tchen said. She said the delegation will travel to Britain and Denmark because the London Institute of Con-temporary Arts and the Danish Council of Cultural Development invited her to visit. Noting that the creative cultural industry is one of the major fields to be subject to intensified development under the ambitious Challenge 2008 national development plan, Tchen said her council will adopt concrete measures to help boost the cultural industry's development. Tchen said she will also explore the possi-bility of forming a club of creative cultural industry operators and establishing a forum for international exchanges.
■ Public security
Drug seizures down last year
Police seized nearly 800kg of drugs in the first 11 months of last year, a 40 percent decrease from the same period in 2001, according to statistics released yesterday by the National Police Administration. The number of drug cases cracked by police during that time totaled 23,395, a year-on-year decrease of 3,916 cases, or 14.34 percent, the statistics showed. However, there was a 8.97 percent rise in cases involving the first category of drugs (heroin, morphine, opium and cocaine) -- to 11,974 -- over 2001 and a 77 percent rise in cases involving third-category drugs (FM2 and Ketamine) to 4,642 cases. But cases involving second-category drugs (opium poppies, marijuana, amphetamines and MDMA) dropped 50.52 percent from the year before to 6,779 cases.
■ Public security
Police raid nets pirate VCDs
Taichung police said yes-terday that they had seized more than 60,000 fake VCDs on Monday in two separate raids. More than 30,000 pirated VCDs based on popular TV soap operas in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China were con-fiscated, along with some 38,000 pornographic VCDs. Eight suspects were detained in the raids, including two minors. Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) expressed satis-faction with the results of the police efforts against intellectual property piracy, but said he agreed with remarks made by Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (陳定南) that the sentences for violating intellectual property rights are too light.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
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
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
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: