■ Society
Elderly demand better deal
The government should
help agencies dealing with welfare and senior citizens improve their efficiency so that policies can be carried out more smoothly, the fifth "silver hair summit" declared yesterday. Participants said the government ought to establish an assets and property trust for senior citizens to reduce tensions between offspring even before elderly people have died. The summit, attended by about 120 senior citizens, also resolved that the elderly should be treated equally and entitled to the same retirement benefits regardless of profession.
The summit was organized
by the League of Welfare Improvement for the Elderly in the Republic of China. League secretary-general Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴) said that the recommendations drawn up during the summit will be forwarded to the Ministry of the Interior for reference.
■ Engineering
Taipei 101 sets new record
Taipei 101 -- the world's tallest building -- set another first yesterday as
the Guinness Book of World Records certified two of its elevators as the fastest in
the world. Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) attended the record-setting ceremony and took a short and quick ride up the 508m Taipei
101. The two Toshiba-made elevators will take tourists
to the observation deck on
the 89th floor in 37 seconds,
or 60kph. They beat a 1993 record of 45kph set by Mitsubishu-made elevators in the 70-storey Landmark Tower in Yokohama, Japan. Guinness representative Hein De Roux said Toshiba's achievement is impressive even by modern standards
as "it has exceeded the previous record by 33 per cent." Taipei 101 has 61 elevators -- including the two record-breaking lifts -- and 50 escalators. It already holds three world records: structural height (508m), rooftop height (448m) and habitable floor height (438m).
■ Health
Vaccines in test mode
David Ho (何大一), a leading figure in AIDS research and the inventor of a cocktail therapy that improves the lives of sufferers, yesterday discussed two potential HIV vaccines and one potential SARS vaccine at a seminar
in Taipei yesterday. For the past four years, Ho has been researching a DNA vaccine composed of two plasmids that can express five HIV genes. This kind of vaccine
is thought to be able
to enhance the immune system's ability to detect the rapidly changing HIV virus and trigger a cell-mediated immune response to protect the body. A clinical trial involving 45 people in New York conducted this month by Ho proved the vaccine was safe, he said. The second vaccine under research is the MVA vaccine, which has been found to be safe in preclinical in vitro studies. Clinical trials for this vaccine are expected to begin next month.
■ Academia
Ma to speak in HK
The University of Hong Kong said yesterday it will invite Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to deliver a speech on urban cultural development next month. A spokesman said Ma will speak on urban cultural development and
the role of Chinese cities in global cultural development in the 21st century at the university on Jan. 11. According to the spokesman, Ma will make the lecture tour of Hong Kong after attending the closing ceremony for the 2005 Deaflympic Games in Melbourne, Australia. Taipei will be the host city of the next Deaflympics -- an Olympic-style sports event for the hearing-impaired --
to be held in 2009.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai