■ Weather
Typhoon to change course
The nation's weather will not be dramatically affected by Typhoon Tokage, which is expected to turn north toward Japan, but residents in the north will experience more damp days, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Yesterday, heavy rain warnings were issued for mountainous areas in northern and northeastern areas. Forecasters said wet weather might continue until Thursday, with daily rainfall levels possibly exceeding 130mm in some places. "In the next few days, substantial amounts of precipitation will be brought to Taiwan by clouds surrounding the typhoon," meteorologist Chen Wei-liang (陳維良) said yesterday. Tokage yesterday lingered in the Pacific Ocean more than 700km southeast of Oluanpi, the southern tip of Taiwan. Chen said that Tokage would change direction, heading directly for Japan. Yesterday, Tokage had slowed and was moving at a speed of 15kph.
■ Diplomacy
Malaysia to assist fishermen
Taiwan's representative office in Malaysia will offer all necessary assistance to crew members of three detained Taiwanese fishing vessels, a Council of Agriculture (COA) official said yesterday. According to media reports, the three Taiwan fishing vessels have been detained in Malaysia since last Friday on charges of illegal fishing in waters off Labuan in Sabah State in northern Borneo. Malaysian naval authorities claimed that the three fishing boats -- the Hsinhaifa, the Lienyuchun, and the Lienyuchun No. 18 -- were caught fishing in waters off Labuan on Oct. 15 without legal operating licenses. One Taiwanese ship was reportedly damaged in the chase by Malaysian naval vessels. The official with the COA's Fishery Adminis-tration said the council has asked Taiwan's represent-ative office in Malaysia through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to assist crew members of the detained ships in resolving the issue.
■ Transport
Plane slips off runway
Taipei's Songshan Airport was closed early last night after a plane slipped off the airport's runway at 7:50pm. No one was injured, but the airport was immediately closed by airport authorities until the airplane could be removed from its resting place. According to television reports, the TransAsia flight from Tainan arrived at Songshan at around 7:40pm. However, due to bad weather, the plane slipped as it landed. The 100 passengers and six crew members on board were unharmed. Because of difficulties removing the plane, airport personnel said last night that it was not clear what time today the airport would be back in operation.
■ Defense
Missile remarks defended
Secretary-General of the Presidential Office Su Tzeng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday defended the appropriateness of public disclosures by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) about the number of Chinese ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan. Fielding questions at the legislature, Su said that the "belligerent" China has never relented in intimidating Taiwan with the threat of missiles and has continued to increase the deployment of such weapons systems. Against this backdrop, Su said, it is only appropriate for the president or vice president to talk to the nation about the number of the missiles -- which he said is as normal as a guard at a sentry post signalling a warning. Su said that Chen and Lu's disclosure of the missiles was not a "disclosure of military intelligence."
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
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
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
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400