■ DIPLOMACY
WHO article sparks row
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday it was looking into the WHO’s use of the term “Taiwan (China)” to refer to the country. The term was used in an article titled “Taiwan (China) urges event planners to take precautions against Pandemic (H1N1) 2009,” which was posted online on Tuesday by the WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila. “The Foreign Ministry’s representative in the Philippines is now looking into the matter and will lodge a protest and request a correction from the world health body, but the process could take some time,” ministry spokesman Henry Chen (陳銘政) said. “We hope that Taiwan can be referred to as Chinese Taipei in WHO agencies and meetings. This is the goal that we are working toward.”
■ RELIGION
Church honors three
Artist Yang En-dian (楊恩典), who paints with her mouth and feet, is one of three people who will receive a special Family Values Award on Father’s Day today to recognize their strong family values, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said in a press release yesterday. This is the sixth consecutive year the church has recognized outstanding people for their contributions to strengthening families throughout Taiwan. Yang was born with no arms and a deformed right leg and spine. She was abandoned by her parents and brought to an orphanage in Kaohsiung in March 1974. Growing up to earn her own living by selling her paintings, Yang is now married and has a daughter of her own. Huang Suei-ping, founder of the Taiwan Spinocerebellar Ataxia Association, will receive the award for expanding her love for her stricken siblings to others with similar problems. Huang Chih-ming, chief advisor of Prudential Financial Inc, Taiwan, was chosen for his contributions to promoting family values.
■ SOCIETY
Shops plan gay soiree
Gay-friendly stores in Taipei City’s Gongguan (公館) and Ximending (西門町) shopping districts will hold events on Lunar Lover’s Day on Aug. 22 to mark the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the nation’s gay rights movement. The alliance of gay-friendly stores will celebrate the day with a series of events, including a forum on same-sex relationships at 1:30pm, a drama performed by students from Taipei National University of the Arts at 4pm, and a soiree on the square around the Red House Theater in Ximending. Participating stores will set up booths selling their wares, while gay rights activists will share a brief history of the movement over the past 10 years.
■ DIPLOMACY
Mine removal supported
Taiwan has provided assistance to the US-based nongovernmental Humpty Dumpty Institute (HDI) in support of a program promoting landmine removal and assisting victims of landmines and unexploded ordnance in Vietnam. Kenneth Liao (廖港民), director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, and HDI president Ralph Cwerman signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in New York on Thursday. Liao later handed a US$200,000 check to Cwerman on behalf of the government. The amount is intended to support the HDI’s ongoing efforts to remove landmines in Vietnam and to expand mushroom farming there to generate jobs and income for those who have been left disabled by landmines or unexploded ordnance. Over the next two years, Taiwan will also send mushroom farming experts to Vietnam to take part in the program.
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