■ Smuggling
Produce-runners detained
The Coast Guard nabbed three Chinese fishing boats in Kinmen and detained a total of 17 people who were on the boats yesterday for smuggling farm produce. Coast Guard officials said that they seized about 600kg of produce that included rice, peanuts, mushrooms, eggs, dried oysters and vegetables on three boats that intruded into Taiwan waters. All three boats and all suspects detained came from Xiamen, Fujian Province, the officials said. Given that a three-month seasonal suspension of fishing in waters off Fujian began Saturday, increased smuggling from China using the idled fishing boats was expected in the area. Coast Guard forces will increase patrol missions in territorial waters to curb illegal commercial activities and prevent the spread of contagious diseases from China, particularly SARS, which recently reappeared in Beijing and Anhui Province.
■ Travel
Crash victims aided
Taiwanese officials posted in Japan have contacted a group of Taiwanese tourists injured in a bus crash in the town of Oshamanbe on Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said yesterday. Richard Shih (石瑞琦) said officials at Taiwan's representative office in Tokyo have offered to help the 27 tourists, all of whom suffered injuries in the accident. Twenty-five have been released from hospital, while two remain there for further observation. The only fatality in the accident was the bus driver, who died after being sent to hospital. The tourists were on a bus headed to the airport on their way back to Taiwan after a five-day tour in Hokkaido when the bus tipped over onto the highway's safety island. All the tourists, except the two who remain in hospital, were expected to fly back to Taiwan yesterday, Shih said.
■ Labor
Referendums called for
A labor group yesterday called for a referendum on a labor pension program it has devised and on a change to the election system for legislators. Lu Tien-lin (盧天麟), president of the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions, told a news conference on Labor Day that the confederation has developed a pension plan for workers that is patterned on the one for government employees and military personnel. Under the pension plan, Lu said, workers would pay a premium every month while they are employed in return for a monthly pension after they retire. Furthermore, Lu said the confederation will press for a referendum on revising the current election system for legislators which he said produces lawmakers standing for extreme political views. In order to address this problem, Lu said his confederation advocates an election system in which the voters are given two votes -- one for individual candidates and one for a political party.
■ Diplomacy
Chadian minister to visit
Chadian Minister of Public Health Aziza Baroud will arrive in Taipei tomorrow, heading a four-member delegation for a five-day visit, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The visit is aimed at promoting bilateral relations and cooperation, ministry officials said. During their stay in Taiwan, Baroud and his delegation will visit the ministry, the Department of Health under the Executive Yuan, the Center for Disease Control, the International Cooperation and Development Fund and medical facilities, the officials said. The visitors are scheduled to depart May 7.
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