■ DIPLOMACY
Chen stops not yet decided
Minister of Foreign Affairs James Huang (黃志芳) said yesterday that the US had not yet responded to the issue of the arrangements for President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) stopovers in the US during his visit to Central American allies that will begin on Aug. 20. Huang said that most of the press coverage about Chen's stopovers was speculation as the president's itinerary was still under review. The government will try its best to coordinate with the US on the issue, Huang said. Meanwhile, the ministry held a swearing-in ceremony for four diplomats. Representative to Thailand Roy Wu (烏元彥), Representative to Peru Huang Lien-sheng (黃聯昇), Representative to Papua New Guinea Chen Shan-lin (陳杉林) and Representative to South Africa Tu Sheng-kuan (杜聖觀) took their oath of office and will soon assume their new positions.
■ DEFENSE
English camp held
More than 230 National Defense University students participated in an English camp at Fuhsingkang campus in Taipei yesterday, as part of the military's efforts to upgrade its officers' English comprehension ability. The university organized the five-day English camp, hiring nine foreign-certified English teachers to instruct the students on making English a part of their daily lives. Fuhsingkang campus director Major General Wang Ming-wo (王明我) encouraged the students to take advantage of the camp to learn to express themselves in English. Communication is very important, especially to a military officer, he said, adding that it is a tool that an officer can use to explore the world.
■ HEALTH
Pap smear screening low
More than 40 percent of Taiwanese women do not undergo a pap smear test at least once a year, even though free cervical cancer screening has been offered by the government since 1995, a doctor at National Cheng Kung University Hospital said yesterday. Cheng Ya-ming (鄭雅敏), a doctor in the hospital's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said that about 500,000 women around the world die from cervical cancer every year. This type of cancer also poses as a major health threat to Taiwanese women, with the number of new cases per year reaching 6,000. With some 1,000 Taiwanese dying from cervical cancer each year, it has become the leading cause of death among women in the country. He said women aged 30 to 50 form the bulk of those undergoing annual screening, with few women who have reached menopause requesting such tests.
■ HEALTH
Stores to help with first aid
Taipei health authorities are working on a plan to make the city's 2,000 convenience stores part of its first aid network, officials with the city's Department of Health said yesterday. They said the plan will see convenience store employees offered the opportunity to go on training programs so that they can be issued with first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) certification. They said that with appropriate training, these stores can supplement the emergency medical services provided by hospital emergency rooms and the city's Fire Department. Kao Wei-chun (高偉君), section chief in charge of medical services administration, said the government hoped the employees of at least 70 percent of the 2,000 convenience stores could have their employees qualified in CPR and first aid before the end of this year.
■ CRIME
Thai arrested at airport
A Thai woman was arrested on Sunday at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport for trying to leave on a bogus passport, National Immigration Agency officers said yesterday. The 45-year-old woman, identified as Parawee Vichaivong, admitted that she obtained the false passport for NT$30,000 from a human-trafficking group. The woman was detained while preparing to board a flight to Bangkok. Vichaivong entered the country last year and began working in a massage parlor.
■ LAW
Illustrator sues phone seller
A popular illustrator and author who uses the pen-name Jimmy has sued an online Chinese mobile phone seller for infringing upon his copyright, a Chinese court news Web site reported yesterday. The case is being handled by the Chaoyang District Court in Beijing, according to www.chinacourt.org which is sponsored by the Supreme People's Court of China. In his petition filed with the court, Jimmy accused the seller, which operates through the Web site www.18900.com, of allowing its customers to download his illustrations as mobile phone themes without his authorization, the report said. They include illustrations from some of his popular illustrated books, such as Turn Left Turn Right, Moon Forget, Sound of Colors and Missing My Cat, the report said. In addition to requiring the seller to stop the unauthorized download service, Jimmy is demanding that the seller pay him 300,000 Chinese yuan (US$39,651) in compensation, post an apology statement on its Web site and pay for his lawyer fees and travel costs.
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:
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
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