■ Industry
Goliath crane rebranded
CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船), formerly China Shipbuilding Corp (CSBC, 中國造船), has painted its new name on the huge Goliath crane at the CSBC Kaohsiung shipyard, a company official said on Tuesday. It took a team of laborers a full day to complete the project. The Goliath crane is 177m wide and 87m high, and each Chinese character covers 9m2. The official said that CSBC's name-change was approved by its board of directors but pending final approval by general investors on March 1. This is seen as a formality as the Ministry of Economic Affairs holds most of CSBC's stocks. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) will host an unveiling ceremony marking CSBC name change on March 3, the official said.
■ Travel
Early check-ins mandatory
From today, passengers departing on international flights are advised to check in three hours prior to their departure times, the Civil Aeronautic Administration (CAA) said yesterday. Passengers will be forbidden from carrying containers holding more than 100ml of liquid, gel or spray on international flights and liquids of less than 100ml must be sealed in see-through plastic bags and inspected by security officials. The aviation police will provide each passenger with a single 24cm by 17cm plastic bag, CAA officials said, adding that the bags are similar to those in use at international airports in the US, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Macau. Dismissing criticism from certain airline companies that the early check-in requirement is unnecessary, CAA officials said it was in line with US air transport security measures.
■ Politics
Chen still house-hunting
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is looking for an apartment in Kaohsiung but has no plans to spend taxpayers' money on real estate, the Presidential Office said yesterday. Chen said before last year's mayoral elections that he was very fond of Kaohsiung City and would like to move there if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) won the Kaohsiung election. DPP candidate Chen Chu (陳菊) was elected by a margin of just 0.14 percent ahead of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) opponent Huang Chun-ying (黃俊英). An article in the latest issue of Next Magazine claimed that the president had decided to buy an upscale apartment in the city and planned to spend tens of millions of NT dollars in public funds renovating the abode. The report said that the president would complete the transaction around the time of the Lantern Festival and then make an official announcement.
■ Politics
Lu challenges magazine
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday asked Next Magazine to produce evidence to prove its allegation that she used her allowance fund to buy pickles and personal items. Lu added that she needed more time to understand the magazine's allegation before making any further comments. The magazine alleged in its latest issue that it had obtained copies of Lu's receipts that indicated the vice president had spent money from the fund at various department stores on clothes and groceries, including a NT$30 jar of pickles and a NT$30 corn salad. The article alleged that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) allocates NT$150,000 from his "state affairs fund" every month to Lu for her disposal.
■ Aquaculture
Head office goes south
The Fisheries Administration is preparing to relocate its headquarters from Taipei to the south of the country in line with the government's policy of bolstering fishery development. Fisheries Administration Director Hsieh Dah-wen (謝大文) said the relocation was ordered by the Executive Yuan. Hsieh said the administration already maintains a regional office in Kaohsiung. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said while delivering an administrative report at the legislature on Tuesday that the Fisheries Administration would be moved to southern Taiwan, presumably Kaohsiung. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) also said recently that several Cabinet agencies should relocate, including the Council of Agriculture and the Council of Labor, to the south before talking about any relocation of the nation's capital.
■ Olympics
Torch route decision coming
A decision on whether the Olympic torch will pass through Taiwan on its way to the Beijing Summer Games will not be known until next month, a Chinese official said yesterday. China has offered to allow the 2008 Beijing Olympic torch relay to pass through Taiwan, but Taiwanese officials have said that this would be acceptable only if Taiwan is part of the torch's international leg. "The question will be answered in April when the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games unveils the relay map," spokesman Li Weiyi (李維一) of China's Taiwan Affairs Office said when asked at a news conference if the torch route would include Taiwan. Chinese Olympic officials have already announced that the Olympic torch route will include the summit of Mount Everest, with organizers planning to make a trial run up the world's highest mountain later this year.
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
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not