■ Currency
Old bills' time running out
Old NT$500 and NT$1,000 banknotes lacking a holographic foil membrane will be pulled from circulation on Aug. 1. A central bank spokesman said the old banknotes should be exchanged for new ones at financial institutions before July 31. After that date, the Bank of Taiwan will be the only place where people will be able to exchange old notes. Most NT$500 and NT$1,000 bills in circulation are of the new variety, the spokesman said. The spokesman said there was a holographic foil membrane on the right side of the new note's front side, while the original color-changing security thread has been replaced with a wider security holographic thread on the back of the note.
■ Culture
SMS literature encouraged
In an effort to promote Chinese literature, the Taipei City Government has joined forces with cellphone companies on a project to encourage residents to submit "text-message articles" about life in Taipei. With text messages becoming one of the more popular means of communication, the "Muse sends text message -- Taipei life 66688" project seeks to combine literature with technology, and invites Taipei residents to write about daily life in Taipei in the form of text messages from 30 to 70 words in length. "Expressing deep thoughts with the least number of words represents the highest level of Chinese literature and the most competitive communication model in this generation," event host and writer Liu Ko-hsiang (劉克襄) said yesterday. The event, which runs through April 18, will select 16 text messages from the submitted works, and winners will receive free cellphones from Nokia. Text messages should be sent to 66688, and are charged at NT$5 each.
■ Society
DPP proposes new holiday
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday resolved to urge the government to make April 7 "Freedom of Speech Day" to commemorate the death of human rights activist Cheng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), Acting DPP Chairman Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) told a press conference. Holidays in memory of dictator Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) birthday and death -- Oct. 30 and April 5 -- should be abolished, DPP Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said. There were no dissenting voices from representatives from the Cabinet that were present at the meeting yesterday, but the Cabinet would need time to prepare for the abolishment, Chai added. Cheng was the publisher of the Freedom Era weekly. He immolated himself when police attempted to arrest him in his office in 1989 to protest against the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government's oppression.
■ Crime
Chiu told to report to jail
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅), who was sentenced to 14 months in prison for public disturbance, will report to prison next Monday. "I received the notice of the coming into force of the sentence from the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office at noon [yesterday], which asked me to report to jail on April 9," Chiu said. The Supreme Court turned down Chiu's appeal on March 22, upholding the Kaohsiung Branch of the Taiwan High Court's ruling sentencing him to jail for 14 months. Chiu was found guilty of leading a group of protesters, hopping on a pickup truck and attempting to break through the gates of the Kaohsiung District Court on March 21, 2004, following the re-election of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
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