The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday it had asked its representatives in Tokyo to express their serious concerns to the government there about the a landing by Japanese right-wingers on the disputed Tiaoyutai islands in the East China Sea. \nNine members of Nihon Seinensya (Japan Youth Society) landed on the uninhabited, rocky islet at 7:04am and stayed there for about five hours, according to Japan's coast guard. \n"The members, all men ... said they needed to do maintenance work on a lighthouse on the Uotsuri Island," the official said. \nTaiwan's foreign ministry restated Taiwan's claims to ownership of the islands and protested to the Japanese government against the landing. It demanded the Japanese government prevent similar incidents from happening again. \nThe Nihon Seinensya built the lighthouse in 1978 and it needs to have the batteries replaced this year, the group said on its Web site. \nThey chartered a fishing vessel at Ishigaki Island, some 160km to the south of the disputed islet, and departed late Sunday, the coast guard said. \nThey reached the island using a rubber dinghy. The Japan Coast Guard sent several vessels to monitor the rightists' voyage but declined to specify how many ships were involved. \n"We had been instructing them not to land on the island without approval from the state but they did not listen," the coast guard official said. \nJapan declared the islands as part of its territory in 1895 and they were temporarily put under US control after World War II. They were returned to Japanese rule in 1972. \nThe island chain is claimed by Japan, China and Taiwan. \nThe simmering territorial dispute came to the fore in the early 1970s, when China and Taiwan made their claims to the islands after oil deposits were confirmed in the area by a UN agency.
DOING ENOUGH? The HPA budgets NT$1.3 billion to prevent the health hazards of tobacco, but has no separate budget to fight teen drinking, a doctor said The government should step up alcohol education and prevention efforts, and allocate more of the budget to it, doctors said on Friday, citing the high consumption of alcohol among Taiwanese adolescents. One out of four 12-to-17-year-olds has consumed alcohol, said Yen Tsung-hai (顏宗海), director of Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital’s Department of Clinical Toxicology. The Health Promotion Administration (HPA) budgets NT$1.3 billion (US$43.9 million) annually to prevent the health hazards of tobacco, but it has not allocated a separate budget for preventing teenage drinking or excessive alcohol use, Yen said. “There is no so-called ‘safe drinking level’ for minors,” because any amount consumed
The Fancy Frontier manga and anime expo held in Taipei over the weekend has sparked controversy, after a participant allegedly contravened the Act on Offenses Against Sexual Morality (妨害風化罪) by publicly exposing her private parts during a photo shoot. The two-day event opened at the Expo Dome at the Taipei Expo Park on Saturday, attracting numerous comic and anime creators, cosplayers, photographers and fans. Allegedly, a female cosplayer who was not wearing any underwear lifted up her skirt and revealed her private parts at an outdoor photography area near the venue. Event organizers said yesterday that to prevent indecent exposure, they have since
YOUNGEST PATIENT: Cases of botulism have been only sporadically reported over the past few years, with two in 2015, six in 2016 and none in the past three years The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the nation’s first case of infant botulism this year, a four-month-old boy in northern Taiwan, as well as five new cases of Japanese encephalitis confirmed last week. The boy was introduced to homemade solid food in the middle of last month, but began to experience constipation and loss of appetite on June 23, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said, adding that he was taken to the hospital when he developed a fever and shortness of breath on June 25. In the hospital, the boy also experienced a rapid heartbeat, limb
The National Taiwan Museum’s Railway Department Park in Taipei is to open to the public today. The park in Datong District (大同) near the North Gate (北門, Beimen) is one of the museum’s four branches. During the Japanese colonial era, the site housed the railway department of the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan’s Bureau of Transportation. After World War II, it served as the headquarters for the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) for several decades. In 2007, it was listed as a national monument under the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法). At an opening ceremony yesterday, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung
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