■ Executive Yuan
Conservation fee proposed
The public will be charged a water-resource conser-vation fee if draft amend-ments to the Tap Water Law (自來水法) pass the legislature. According to a Cabinet official who asked not to be named, the draft, which is scheduled to be approved by the Cabinet during the weekly closed-door Cabinet meeting tomorrow, would authorize the Ministry of Economic Affairs to consult with local governments while mapping out the fee struc-ture. The draft would also mandate the establishment of a supervisory com-mittee to oversee the fund. "Taxa-tion levied on the water resources is different from other fees paid to the government agencies because it requires a more transparent mechanism to supervise the use of the fund," the official said.
■ Travel
New passport draws flak
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday it is checking with officials in Bosnia and Slovakia over reports from local travel agencies that the two countries have refused to recognize Taiwan's new passport. "We are trying to understand what exactly has happened there, and are telling them that the new passport has nothing to do with politics," said ministry spokesman Richard Shih (石瑞琦). His comment came after travel agencies reported that both countries had recently barred the entry of visitors using the new passports. The government began issuing the new passports earlier this month. The new pass-port includes the word "Taiwan" in Roman script on the cover, underneath the nation's official title "Republic of China." Shih said the government has informed other countries of the change, telling them that it was merely for the convenience of Taiwanese travelers.
■ Cross-strait ties
Smugglers turn to marriage
Police reported yesterday a new scheme by human smugglers, known as "snakeheads," to import Chinese women to be used for prostitution. Police said snakeheads recently approached three Aborigi-nal men in Fuhsing village, Taoyuan County, and offered them an expenses-paid month in China plus NT$30,000 (US$887) apiece. The trio traveled to China, where the snakeheads arranged marriages for them with Chinese women. The women then came to Taiwan and registered their marriages and were then free to move around the country. Police said that the three men had knowingly helped the women come to Taiwan and had committed forgery. They were turned over to the Prosecutors' Office after an initial investigation. Police vowed to step up a crackdown on marriages of convenience.
■ Tourism
Vietnamese group to visit
Thirty-five Vietnamese journalists and businessmen from the tourism industry will arrive in Taipei today for a five-day visit at the invitation of the Tourism Bureau. A bureau official said yesterday that there is ample room for the devel-opment of tourism between the two countries because their trade relations are getting closer. There are about 30,000 Taiwanese doing business in Vietnam and many Vietnamese laborers work in Taiwan. There have also been many marriages between Viet-namese and Taiwanese.
The visitors will call on the China External Trade Development Council and visit several tourist attrac-tions during their stay.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai