■ TRANSPORTATION
Kaohsiung ends free buses
Kaohsiung City’s free bus rides will be terminated at the end of this month, the city’s Transportation Bureau said. Wang Kuo-tsai (王國材), director of the city’s Transportation Bureau, said Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) had approved the bureau’s plan to stop the service. Wang said the nine-month service had cost the city government a total of NT$75 million (US$2.2 million), adding that the rest of the budget — estimated at NT$10 million — would be spent on shuttle buses for the World Games. Wang downplayed the impact of the termination on the city government’s efforts to boost the utilization rate of the city’s mass transit system.
■ DIPLOMACY
Panama receives funds
Taiwan Ambassador to Panama Simon Ko (柯森耀) donated US$5 million to the Central American nation on behalf of the government on Thursday to help renovate a highway and construct a tap water supply system. The donation was accepted by Panamanian Minister of the Presidency Rafael Mezquita at the Presidential Office. Expressing his country’s gratitude for the donation, Mezquita said the money would be of great help in improving the livelihoods and living conditions of the people of Panama. Describing Taiwan as not only a generous donor but also a good partner, Mezquita said, “Taiwan is Panama’s staunch sponsor.” To highlight the government-to-government nature of the donations and the Panamanian government’s transparency in using the funds, Mezquita said that the money has gone into the country’s national treasury, that the use of the money would be scrutinized by parliament and that it would be audited. His remarks were in response to previous reports that said Taiwan had given a US$5 million private donation to Panamanian first lady Vivian Fernandez de Torrijos.
■ ANIMALS
Chihuahuas available
Animals Taiwan (AT) on Thursday sent out a request urging the public to help find adoptive families for more than 25 dogs that were secretly bred in a cage by a man outside his property. AT said all the dogs, mainly Chihuahuas and Daschunds, had had their vocal cords cut. Two female dogs with puppies were also found at the site. The incident has been reported to the Taipei Animal Health Department. AT said the department had refused to take the dogs in. AT plans to take all of the dogs to be neutered but will need to find homes for them. Those who are interested in providing a temporary or permanent home for the dogs, please visit www.animalstaiwan.org for further details.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Incinerators create income
Two incinerators operated by the Kaohsiung City Government have created extra income of more than NT$150 million (US$4.45 million) each year by generating electricity from the heat produced by the incineration process, city government sources said yesterday. The incinerators, attached to the two garbage centers in the city, incinerate an average of 240,000 tonnes of waste and garbage a year out of a total of approximately 298,000 tonnes of waste treated, officials from the Kaohsiung Department of Environmental Protection said in a report to the Kaohsiung City Council. The 298,000 tonnes of waste also included garbage collected from Penghu County, as well as from Kaohsiung County and Yunlin County.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
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
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
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400