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Taiwan Quick Take

■ Society
Multicultural unions rising
Multicultural marriages have become increasingly popular as one in every 5.5 married couples has a foreign spouse, according to statistics released yesterday by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (主計處). The figures show that more than 46,000 couples were married this year between January and last month, a 4.5 percent increase over the same period last year. Of the total, over 3,500 spouses were Chinese and more than 4,900 were foreigners. As the number of people tying the knot is increasing, so is the number of those severing the knot. Over 15,000 couples were divorced between January and last month, a 2.4 percent increase over the same period last year. Of the total, 2,155 of the divorced spouses were Chinese, while 803 were foreigners.

■ Travel
Dysentery strikes again
Authorities from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported fresh cases of dysentery among Taiwanese tourists who recently returned from trips to Bali. Three people who visited Bali between March 25 and April 1, were confirmed by CDC laboratories to have contracted bacillary dysentery, said Lai Ming-ho, chief of the CDC's quarantine and disease prevention division. Twenty-six other tour group members have been tracked down and have tested negative for dysentery, while the remaining 10 have yet to be examined, Lai said. A dysentery outbreak in Bali has scared some tourists away from the island since last November after 111 Taiwanese were confirmed to have contracted the disease. However, the number of Taiwanese visitors to Bali has picked up again this year.

■ Travel
Visa status restored
South Africa's 90-day visa-free treatment for Taiwanese will stand, an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Chang Pei-chi (張北齊), director-general of the ministry's Department of African Affairs, noted that the Pretoria government had originally granted the preferential treatment to Taiwanese, but after heavy pressure from China -- whose citizens do not enjoy the same treatment despite Beijing's formal diplomatic relations with Pretoria -- South Africa was forced to cancel the favorable visa situation for Taiwanese. But the change was met with steep opposition, and the South African high court ruled on April 6 that the revocation of the visa privileges for Taiwanese must be rescinded, leaving the 90-day, visa-free treatment intact. The ministry will continue to follow the situation very closely, Chang said.

■ Politics
Nutritionists reined in
The legislature passed an amendment to the Nutritionist Law yesterday to impose stricter regulations. The amendment stipulates that if beauty salons want to offer consultation on nutrition, they have to hire qualified nutritionists who have served in a medical center for over three years as consultants. The nutritionists will have to offer the advice personally to the customers when the customers are seeking health evaluations or diet consultations, and the nutritionists will need to keep the customers' information confidential. Meanwhile, the beauty salons have to display the nutritionists' licenses in public. If a nutritionist rents his license out and is discovered, his license may be revoked.

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