■ EVENTS
Shuttle buses to run today
The Kaohsiung City Government said yesterday that it will offer shuttle buses to and from Pingtung County's Dapeng Bay (大鵬灣) for National Day fireworks. After an administrative meeting yesterday morning, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) said that buses would leave every 30 minutes from Kaohsiung Train Station between 1pm and 3:30pm. The buses will return from Dapeng Bay every 30 minutes between 8:30pm and 10:30pm, Chen said. The measure, Chen said, was intended to encourage residents to take public transportation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Kaohsiung Bus Service Administration Director Tseng An-li (曾安麗) said the bus ride would cost NT$30 to cover insurance.
■ POLITICS
Shih to give speech today
Shih Ming-teh (施明德), leader of a campaign to pressure President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) into resigning, will walk to the National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Office this morning and make a speech, the campaign said yesterday. Campaign spokesman Jerry Fan (范可欽) said Shih -- a former chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party -- would be the group's sole representative at the ceremony. Shih will leave for the celebrations from the campaign's office on Chinan Road at 9:40am, and walk to the event wearing a red shirt, Fan said.
■ DIPLOMACY
Chen thanks Swaziland
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) expressed gratitude to Swaziland, one of the government's African allies, for speaking up for Taiwan's application to join the UN at the world body's general assembly. Chen made the remarks while meeting on Monday with Swazi House of Assembly Speaker Prince Guduza Dlamini, who is visiting with a delegation to attend Double Ten National Day celebrations. Chen also thanked Guduza for his country's efforts to incorporate Taiwan into international projects. Chen said a medical cooperation protocol signed with Swaziland when King Mswati III visited Taiwan for the Taiwan-Africa leadership summit last month would see Taiwan send a medical team at the beginning of next year to provide medical aid in Swaziland on a long-term basis. A protocol on cooperation between the countries over the next 10 years will soon go into effect and ensure continued good relations, Chen said.
■ HEALTH
Officials tackle dengue
The Kaohsiung County Government has sent health officials and quarantine experts to Tainan City to help halt an expanding outbreak of dengue fever ahead of the Oct. 20 opening of the 2007 National Athletic Games, a county official said yesterday. Kaohsiung County Bureau of Health Director Huang Chih-chung (黃志中), made the announcement in a report to the county government. Huang said that the number of indigenous dengue fever cases in Tainan City had reached 477 since the beginning of the year, while Kaohsiung City has recorded 64 cases and Tainan County 32. Given that the dengue fever virus will remain infectious through the end of this month, Huang suggested that athletes participating in the games in Tainan City take precautions against contracting the illness. The National Athletic Games will determine which athletes compete in the Olympic Games in Beijing next year.
■ CRIME
Travelers caught with crabs
Customs officers have seized Chinese hairy crabs weighing a total of 274kg from inbound travelers since Sept. 8, the Taipei Customs Office said yesterday. It said in a press release that the sought-after crabs could pose a health threat. If travelers attempt to sneak them into the country, they will invariably be detected by customs officers or X-ray machines, it said, adding that officials were finding and destroying large numbers of hairy crabs every day. Taiwan adopted stricter inspection criteria to deal with Chinese hairy crabs this year after imported crabs last year were found to contain traces of the banned antibiotic nitrofuran, a cancer-causing agent. China recently accused Taiwan of adopting excessively stringent criteria, and said that unless the two nations could reach an agreement on inspection, Taiwanese would not be able to enjoy Chinese crabs this year. Local crab importers have
yet to apply for an import license this year, the Department of Health said.
■ SOCIETY
Taipei to host design meet
Taipei has won its bid to host the 2011 World Design Congress, defeating the other finalist, Melbourne, Ministry of Economic Affairs officials said yesterday. Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (陳瑞隆) was scheduled to call a news conference last night to officially announce the news, the officials said. Taipei filed its application with the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) in January and competed with 19 other cities from 13 countries for the right to host the event. After several rounds of voting, Taipei and Melbourne were shortlisted as finalists.
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