■ TRAVEL
Taipei-Nankan route busiest
The flight route linking Taipei and Nankan (南竿), Lienchiang Province, registered the highest domestic air passenger load factor (PLF), with 82.7 percent last month, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) reported on Friday. UNI Airways is the sole operator of that route. The Taichung-Kinmen route, also serviced by UNI, registered the second-highest PLF, with 81.3 percent, followed by the Tainan-Kinmen route. with a 79.4 percent rate, CAA statistics showed. Other routes with a PLF higher than 70 percent last month included Taichung-Nankan, Taipei-Kinmen and Taipei-Peikan (北竿), Matsu, routes.
■ HEALTH
More oral cancer screening
The Department of Health (DOH) will expand the scale of oral cancer scanning beginning next year, increasing the number of people checked from 300,000 to 600,000 annually. Wu Chien-yuan (吳建遠), an official at the DOH's Bureau of Health Promotion, said oral cavity cancer was the principal culprit in the nation's increasing death rate from cancer among males in the past 10 years. The average age of Taiwanese dying from oral cancer is 55, he said. The disease is heavily correlated with betel nut chewing,Wu said, adding that between 1.5 million and 2 million Taiwanese chew betel nut, while only 300,000 people are scanned for oral cancer every year. Wu said the rate of oral cancer screening is less than 20 percent, yet the number of people diagnosed with oral cancer has increased annually. Scanning on a larger scale is necessary to ensure that the disease is discovered in the early stages, he said.
■ CRIME
Gun fired at Tsai's office
Police are looking for two individuals in connection with a gunfire scare outside the office of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Lawmaker Alex Tsai (蔡正元) in Nangang yesterday. No one was injured. Police said the suspects fired at the iron door of the office, which might have been intended as a warning to Tsai, who said yesterday that someone had fired a gun in the air outside his office before. Tsai said the two incidents may have been related to shareholding disputes at Central Motion Pictures Corp (CMPC, 中影公司). He said he had been informed that someone had sought help from gangsters to settle the disputes. The company is scheduled to hold a shareholders' meeting on Tuesday and to elect new board members. Tsai has been accused by former CMPC vice president Chuang Wan-chun (莊婉均) of stealing her shares in the corporation.
■ INFRASTRUCTURE
Freeways to be improved
The government will invest NT$100 billion (US$3 billion) over the next three years to improve existing freeways and construct new ones, Council for Economic Planning and Development officials said. Taking the Hsuehshan tunnel section of the Chiang Wei-Shui Freeway linking Taipei and Ilan as an example, the officials said that the total bi-directional traffic volume surpassed 14 million vehicles during the past year. The monthly traffic volume of the tunnel averages more than 1 million vehicles, while the weekly traffic volume averages more than 200,000 vehicles, the officials said. In addition, the Chiang Wei-Shui Freeway has greatly reduced the travel time between Taipei and Ilan and boosted tourism in the east, the officials said. An economic development plan said that the Executive Yuan will launch measures from this year through 2009 to provide a "safer, more comfortable" freeway network, the officials said.
■ SOCIETY
House fire kills four
A fire in Longtan (龍潭), Taoyuan County, yesterday claimed the lives of a pregnant woman and three of her children. Firemen were able to control the fire within 10 minutes of their arrival, but they could not save the family, the police said. The windows of the two-story house were covered with iron grating making escape impossible. The woman, surnamed Chung and her three children ran to the top of house for help where they died. The children were aged 4, 3 and 2. Chung's husband broke down when he was informed of their deaths, the police said. Two of Chung's children were spared because they were not at home at the time. Police said they were still investigating the cause of the fire.
■ CULTURE
Choir places in contest
The Taiwanese Earth Choir won second place in the children's chorus division at the 25th Cantonigros International Music Festival in Spain, the choir said on Friday. The Severacek Choir from the Czech Republic won first place at the festival, which was held from July 19 to July 22, with 47 music and dance groups from 32 different countries participating. Taiwanese representative to Spain Francisco Hwang (黃瀧元) traveled from Madrid to Cantonigros especially to root for the Taiwanese choir, which is comprised of 48 schoolchildren. The annual music festival started in 1983. According to the festival's organizers, this year's four-day competition attracted around 15,000 spectators, up 3,000 from last year's level. The Taiwanese delegation is still touring around Spain following the competition and is scheduled to return to the country tomorrow.
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
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
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard