■TRAVEL
Airport offers free massages
Travelers at Kaohsiung International Airport are entitled to a free massage if they spend NT$3,000 at the airport’s duty free shops, Kaohsiung City officials said on Friday. The city’s labor affairs bureau and the airport’s duty-free shops are offering 10-minute massages free of charge to shoppers who spend at least NT$3,000. The offer is being made to boost business for vision-impaired massagers, officials said, and will last until the end of next month.
■CULTURE
Matsu statue to visit Everest
A temple on Matsu Island has entrusted a miniature statue of Matsu, the goddess of the sea, to a mountain climber who intends to carry it to the peak of the world’s highest mountain. In a ceremony on Friday, temple administrator Tseng Lin-kuan (曾林官) handed the statue to Lee Hsiao-shih (李小石), who hopes to bring some publicity to the island by taking the goddess with him to Mount Everest next month. The 54-year-old Lee, a Matsu native, is a former military instructor and now works as a mountain tour guide and photographer. He has climbed 200 mountains over 3,000m high in Taiwan and hopes to become the fifth Taiwanese to make it to the peak of the 8,840m Mount Everest. “The temple will give Lee every support,” Tseng said, adding that it had commissioned a new wooden miniature statue for the trip and had donated NT$300,000 for the expedition.
■GOVERNMENT
Streamlining plan under way
Research, Development and Evaluation Commission Minister Jiang Yi-hua (江宜樺) said yesterday that the proposal to streamline the Executive Yuan would be finalized by the end of this month. Jiang said the proposal would cut the number of agencies under the Executive Yuan from 37 to 28, including 13 ministries, eight councils, four institutions and three independent entities. The plan would merge the Overseas Compatriot Affairs Commission with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The three independent entities would be the National Communications Commission, the Central Election Commission and the Fair Trade Commission, Jiang said. Independent entities are defined by the Organic Standard Act of Central Government Agencies (中央行政機關組織基準法) as bodies whose commissioners are appointed by the premier and require legislative approval.
■WEATHER
Cold front moves on
The cold air mass over Taiwan will start to leave today, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday, but temperatures should be low in the morning and evening, dipping to 11ºC in northern and central Taiwan. Temperatures will rise steadily through the week, with temperatures next weekend between 20ºC and 29ºC in the north, 19ºC and 30ºC in central Taiwan, 21ºC and 31ºC in the south, and 20ºC and 28ºC in the east.
■HEALTH
Boy contracts enterovirus
A two-year-old boy in Kaohsiung County has contracted enterovirus and is suffering from severe complications. It is the county’s first serious case of enterovirus this year, the county’s Health Bureau said on Friday. The boy developed a fever and cold-like symptoms last week. When he developed mouth soars and showed signs of excessive nervousness, his parents took him to a hospital. The boy is being treated in an intensive care ward. Last year, the county confirmed 39 serious cases of enterovirus cases, with two deaths.
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