■POLITICS
Hotel rejects accusation
The Grand Hotel in Taipei yesterday dismissed an allegation that it refused to hire out its ballroom to supporters of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for an activity on Sunday. William Wang (王萬), assistant general manager of the hotel’s Business Development Group, said it was likely a misunderstanding between the hotel and a person called “Mr Chiang,” who made the reservation. Wang said the hotel did not unilaterally cancel the reservation Chiang had made for Oct. 5. Wang said that when Chiang made the reservation, he told the hotel 300 people would attend. The hotel found a suitable room for him, but Chiang later said the turnout could be as high as 2,000, Wang said. The hotel then told Chiang that the room could not accommodate that many people and that its bigger venues had already been booked. Wang said Chiang told him that he understood the situation and that he would look for another venue. Former presidential aide Chiang Chih-ming (江志銘), however, said the hotel’s actions had a political motivation. Chiang said the same group had held an activity in the same room in February.
■CRIME
Police trick suspected rapist
Police used a text message to trick and arrest a suspected sex offender on Sunday in Sanchong City (三重市), police said. Hua Yeh-hao (華業豪), 24, is suspected of following a 20-year-old woman into her apartment building in heavy rain in the early hours of Sunday and raping her at knife point, police said. Hua allegedly fled the scene with the victim’s cellphone. Police investigator Lin Chin-chung (林秦忠) used his cellphone to send a text message to the victim’s mobile phone, hoping to trick the rapist into meeting her again. Lin’s message said: “You are the type I like. If you promise to be more gentle, we can meet again.” Hua called back, and the victim chatted with him for 10 minutes to win his trust. She said she had enjoyed “the experience” and would like to meet Hua at a motel. Hua was arrested when he showed up to meet the victim on Sunday afternoon.
■TOURISM
New tourism record set
Approximately 1,600 Chinese tourists arrived in Taiwan yesterday through either cross-strait weekend charter flights or via transit flights, setting a new record high for the number of Chinese tourists arriving on a single day. Some of them had been scheduled to arrive on Sunday, but their flights were rescheduled to yesterday because of Typhoon Jangmi. The Tourism Bureau said about 250 Chinese tourists are scheduled to arrive today via the “small three links” through Kinmen and Matsu, making them the first batch to visit Taiwan on this route. As last week marked the start of China’s “Golden Weeks,” a time when workers must all take three weeks of paid leave, the Tourism Bureau estimated that around 4,000 Chinese tourists would visit Taiwan this week.
■DIPLOMACY
Defense minister visits US
Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) has departed for a defense industry conference in the US, a military officer said yesterday. Chen is to address the conference and visit Taiwan’s naval and air force officers being trained in San Diego and Arizona, a Taiwanese defense ministry officer said on condition of anonymity. Chen is the first Taiwanese defense minister to travel to the US since 2002, when Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) attended a conference in Texas.
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