■ DIPLOMACY
Ally prime minister to visit
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday that Sao Tome and Principe Prime Minister Tome Vera Cruz will lead a delegation to Taiwan on Monday for a four-day visit. Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (黃志芳) will host a birthday party for Cruz on the day of his arrival, ministry officials said. Cruz will call on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) to exchange views on the situation in Africa, bilateral relations and cooperation projects, the officials said. Cruz is also expected to visit information, textile, harbor, power and agriculture facilities, they said. Cruz, who assumed the post of prime minister in April last year, last visited Taiwan in April 2005.
■ HEALTH
Bone marrow donated
A shipment of bone marrow donated by a female Chinese national and tested as a compatible match for a potential Taiwanese recipient is scheduled to arrive in Taipei today. The bone marrow, expected to be delivered from Shanghai to an operating theater at Taipei Veterans General Hospital late tonight, will be transplanted to a 15-year-old girl suffering from inherited anemia. It will mark the first case in which someone from China has donated bone marrow for a Taiwanese recipient. Taiwanese had donated bone marrow to Chinese recipients over the past several years under the arrangements made by Taiwan's Tzu Chi Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Center. The center -- the largest of its kind in Asia -- has built up a databank of nearly 300,000 bone marrow samples since its inception in 1993. It has helped more than 300 victims of blood diseases find donors.
■ CULTURE
Fishermen's fest next week
A Fishermen's Festival will be held next Saturday and Sunday at Waipu Fishing Harbor (外埔漁港) in Houlong Township (後龍), Miaoli County, to mark Fishermen's Day. Activities at the festival will include an exhibition of the local fishing culture, ecological tours, sales of seafood products, seafood specialty cooking classes, a concert and fireworks at night, said Chen You-ching (陳有慶), president of the Taiwan Fishery Association. Visitors will be able to participate in qian gu (牽罟) -- a traditional fishing technique that involves the entire community -- and to see shi hu (石滬), or stone fish traps that once dotted the nation's seacoasts, but now can only be found in Miaoli and Penghu, historian Wang Chi-jen (王啟仁) said.
■ POLITICS
Hsieh leaves on US trip
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) will head to the US today for an eight-day visit, his campaign spokesman said yesterday. The trip will take Hsieh to New York, Washington, Detroit and Los Angeles, Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said. "The visit is aimed at building a channel of communication between Hsieh and the US. We hope it will pave the way for long-term communication," Chao said. In New York, Hsieh will attend a Yankees baseball game, in which Wang Chien-ming (王建民) will be the starting pitcher. He is also scheduled to deliver a speech at the National Press Club in Washington and attend the launch of his supporter clubs in the US capital and Los Angeles. Chao declined to comment on local news reports that Hsieh was to meet with officials from the Pentagon, the US National Security Council and the Department of State, including Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns.
■ CRIME
Police nab pigeon suspects
Four men and a woman have been arrested on suspicion of being part of a fraud ring in Tainan County, the Tainan Prosecutors Office announced yesterday. The prosecutors said the five suspects set up nets to trap racing pigeons in several townships in Tainan County in January. They then demanded ransoms of between NT$2,000 and NT$5,000 per bird. The ring made more than NT$1 million (US$30,000), according to the prosecutors. The ring members also rented a building in Tainan and used it as a base for tricking Chinese people to remit money to a specific bank account in China in exchange for "tax rebates," the prosecutors said. Two of the suspects were detained and the other three were released on bail, while the prosecutors continue their probe.
■ CULTURE
Poles attend language camp
A total of 32 students from various universities in Warsaw, Poland, are attending a Mandarin language study camp at National Kaohsiung Normal University. University president Dai Chia-nan (戴嘉南) said yesterday that the 42-day language and cultural workshop was co-sponsored by the school's Graduate Institute of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Poland. The Polish students are taking Chinese lessons for 20 hours per week, as well as Chinese painting, calligraphy, tea ceremony, paper cutting, kung fu, opera and Taichi courses. The program also includes visits to tourist attractions and cultural institutions, including major Taoist temples, the Foguangshan Foundation for Buddhist Culture and Education, Chengcing Lake and Kaohsiung City Council.
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