■Diplomacy
Liberia appeals for help
The Liberian ambassador has urged the people of Taiwan to extend assistance to his war-ravaged country, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. "Ambassador John Cum-mings made an appeal for assistance from Taiwan's private sector during a recent visit to the ministry to express his gratitude for all the help the government has offered to his country," a ministry official said. The government recently sent 10,000 tonnes of rice to the West African country in two shipments. "Cummings said that the Liberian people need more help and that he is hopeful the nation's people and charitable groups can extend a helping hand to his fellow countrymen," the official said. Several local humanitarian relief groups, including the Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps, have agreed to offer assistance. Private groups or individuals intending to make donations are welcome to contact the Liberian Embassy in Taipei, the official said.
■ Transportation
MRT ridership rising
The number of passengers using Taipei's mass rapid transit (MRT) system is on the rise now that the danger of SARS has diminished, an official of the Taipei Transit System Corp said yesterday. He said that because of the panic over SARS, the average daily number of MRT passengers dropped from 936,000 in March to 860,000 in April and 601,000 in May. With the danger of SARS diminishing, the number climbed to 690,000 last month and 800,000 in the first few days of this month. The number rose to 872,000 on Monday, the first working day after Taiwan was removed from the World Health Organiza-tion's list of SARS-affected areas. The official said he expected the number to rise to 930,000 in early September, when students will return to school.
■ Politics
Businessmen visit Yu
A group of property developers visited Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday to urge the government to step up its efforts to communi-cate with the legislature for the speedy passage of the six economy-related bills, especially the real estate securitization bill (不動產證 券化條例草案). Chao Terng-hsiung (趙藤雄), chairman of the Federation of the Real Estate Development Asso-ciation, ROC, said that it is necessary to enact the law because the more dynamic the real estate market, the better the economy. "With the passage of the real estate securitization law, there'll be more liquidity in the market," Chao said. "I hope both the executive and legislative branches fully support the bill because it's not designed for any particular conglomerate
nor construction company nor to evade taxes." Chao is also the chairman of the
Far East Construction Group.
■ Customs
Illegal mushrooms seized
Customs officials in Kao-hsiung seized mushrooms and aphrodisiacs yesterday worth more than NT$10 million (US$289,855) that arrived from Hong Kong on
a container ship. The officials said that when
they were screening the vessel's bill of lading, they found that the receiver was
a company with no export, import or sales records. Customs officials decided to open the containers, which were filled with stone materials and furniture as claimed on the bill of lading. A more careful examination of the containers, however, uncovered more than three tonnes of mushrooms and 63 boxes of aphrodisiacs made from ox genitals.
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