■ CRIME
Anti-fraud hotline abused
The Criminal Investigation Bureau reminded the public not to abuse the 165 anti-fraud hotline yesterday after two women repeatedly called it to chat or sing over the past year, local media reported. The first woman, a mentally challenged patient who called herself “Phoenix No. 1” (鳳凰一號), made more than 600 calls just to “greet” police from the public telephone of a Hualien mental institution in the past year, the bureau said. She even sang or chanted Buddhist scriptures on the phone, police said. The second woman, nicknamed “A-chu” (阿珠), also abused the hotline frequently by calling to complain about anything and everything, the bureau said. Police said many of the calls made to 165 were completely unrelated to fraud and warned that those who made such calls could face a fine of between NT$3,000 (US$91) and NT$15,000.
■ POLITICS
KMT looks to screen Cabinet
Four members of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) decision-making Central Standing Committee proposed that the new Cabinet lineup should be screened or approved by the committee. The four members, led by Lee Teh-wei (李德維), presented the proposal at the Central Standing Committee’s weekly meeting on Wednesday, KMT spokesman Lee Chien-jung (李建榮) said. KMT Secretary-General Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) asked KMT Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) to convey the suggestion to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is scheduled to take over the KMT chairmanship in October, the spokesman said. In response to mounting public dissatisfaction with the Cabinet’s flawed rescue and relief operations in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot, Ma promised to reshuffle the Cabinet early next month. Lee Teh-wei said that in light of the scale of the typhoon disaster, many members of the public hoped to see a major overhaul of the Cabinet.
■ TRADE
Chinese get Botox injections
Representatives of China’s beauty industry received anti-ageing treatments at two Taipei hospitals on Wednesday as part of their fact-finding tour of Taiwan’s cosmetic dermatology sector. Among the services offered to the visitors were Botox cosmetic injections and skin rejuvenation procedures. The delegation is comprised of 121 professionals from China’s beauty sector who arrived on Tuesday for a six-day visit at the invitation of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council. Lin Tsai-hsia (林彩霞), chairwoman of Best Lady Beauty Body Co in Guangzhou, said the cosmetic dermatology tour would allow them to learn from Taiwan’s success and prepare them for building a cosmetic dermatology industry in China. The delegates are also expected to take part in the Taipei In Style fashion exhibition that starts today.
■ HEALTH
No cholera cases reported
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday that there had been no cholera outbreaks in areas in the south that were flooded after Typhoon Morakot struck earlier this month. The CDC’s statement came in the wake of reports of two suspected cases of cholera in Kaohsiung. In Pingtung County’s Wandan Township (萬丹), however, eight of the 83 suspected cases of leptospirosis have been confirmed as positive and four of the eight patients were in intensive care, CDC Director-General Steve Kuo (郭旭崧) said. There have also been reports of doctors seeing patients complaining of coughs, fevers, deep muscle soreness, liver problems and kidney problems.
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
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: