■ Customs
Smuggled cigarettes found
Customs officials discovered 850 cartons of smuggled Japanese cigarettes worth approximately NT$35 million (about US$1 million) yesterday in a container in Kaohsiung Harbor. Officials at the Kaohsiung Customs Service Bureau said the smuggled cigarettes were mixed with other goods in the container aboard a Spain-bound cargo ship from Japan.
■ Diplomacy
South Africa thanks Taiwan
South African Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang affirmed Tuesday the friendship between the peoples of South Africa and Taiwan. She said that, although South Africa has shifted diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, its friendship with Taiwan has never changed. She made the remarks at a ceremony, in which a Buddhist temple near Pretoria donated wheelchairs and sticks for disabled people. Du Ling (杜稜), representative of Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa, witnessed the ceremony. Taiwan has donated more than 1,000 wheelchairs to South Africa in recent years, she said, adding that the donation is always appreciated
■ Politics
Lien criticizes DPP
The DPP has adopted what KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) described yesterday as "three questionable campaign tactics" to win reelection next year. KMT spokesman Tsai Cheng-yuan (蔡正元) quoted Lien as claiming at a meeting of the party's Central Standing Committee that the DPP is taking steps to defame the legislative branch, manipulate the judicial system and hamper the free press, in order to win reelection. The KMT must be careful in dealing with these "immature" challenges, Tsai quoted Lien as saying, adding a further claim that the DPP is not an entity that can compete righteously in elections. The DPP is unlike any of the mature political parties of advanced countries, he said.
■ Publicity
`Time' mentions first lady
First Lady Wu Shu-Chen (吳淑珍) was chosen as one of Asia's movers and shakers in the latest Asia edition of Time magazine. The issue, scheduled to hit the newsstand on April 28, runs a full-page article with color pictures about Wu. The weekly picks a total of 29 Asian heroes and heroines considered to have made significant contributions to their countries. Commenting on the honor, Wu yesterday said that she personally feels proud of the recognition but accented that the honor belongs to the 23 million Taiwanese people. "I've always envied ancient sword masters whose mission of life is helping the needy and the unfortunate. Now I'm glad that I'm one in modern history because I can speak for the underprivileged and help them improve their lives," she said.
■ Cabinet
Reshuffle talk `irrelevant'
The Presidential Office rebutted speculation yesterday that the Cabinet is likely to undergo a reshuffle next month. The speculation is illogical and irrelevant for the moment, said James Huang (黃志芳), director of the Public Affairs Department of the Presidential Office. Huang said President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had just thanked the entire government staff a day earlier for their devotion to carrying out various policy initiatives. The speculation that originated in the legislature about a Cabinet reshuffle is totally unfounded, he added.
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