■ HEALTH
Five-in-one vaccine offered
A five-in-one vaccine will be available free of charge for infants and children starting today, replacing the traditional three-in-one vaccine, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Shih Wen-yih (施文儀) said yesterday. The vaccine, which will give protection against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and hemophilus influenza type B, will be included in regular vaccination coverage among children, replacing the three-in-one shots that covered diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, he said. Under the new vaccination program, infants should receive the five-in-one vaccine at two months, four months, six months and 18 months of age, Shih said. In the past, parents had to pay between NT$800 and NT$1,200 per shot.
■ EDUCATION
HKU eyes Taiwanese
The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has launched a recruitment drive in Taiwan, seeking local high school graduates with excellent academic performance whom it said would be awarded generous scholarships if they chose to study at HKU. The university said it would offer scholarships totaling HK$140,000 (US$18,000) over three years to students who score at least 54 in the scholastic ability tests and pass its English proficiency tests. The Ministry of Education on Feb. 24 published the results of this year’s general scholastic ability tests for high school graduates. These scores are teenagers’ ticket to university and college. This year, 112 of the more than 140,000 students who took the exam obtained a perfect score of 75. Students seeking enrollment at prestigious universities in Taiwan such as National Taiwan University must score more than 54.
■ AID
ICDF, Mercy Corps cooperate
The International Cooperation and Development Fund (Taiwan ICDF), which is affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is cooperating with the US charity Mercy Corps in hiring Haitian earthquake survivors to clean up debris and rebuild their homes, an official said yesterday. The “Employment Replaces Relief” program is designed to create jobs and allow Haitians displaced by the magnitude-7 earthquake that struck the Caribbean ally on Jan. 12 to rebuild their homes and livelihoods self-sufficiently, the official said. The program was launched on Feb. 1, with Mercy Corps responsible for four quake refugee settlement centers in Port-au-Prince, the official said, adding that the initial stage of the project would last six months. Under the program, Mercy Corps employs quake victims to clean up the wreckage and carry out temporary construction work, with each worker receiving US$5 per day.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Toyota slams into pillar
A Toyota collided with a pillar in front of a convenience store in Taichung County on Saturday as the driver was parking the car, local reports said yesterday. The driver, a 36-year-old woman, said she was putting the car into parking gear when her four-year-old Toyota Wish lurched forward and hit the store. “The car had stopped. But when I was shifting gears, it lurched forward on its own and the brakes did not work,” she said. No casualties were reported, but the driver’s mother, who was sitting in the front passenger seat when the incident occurred, was taken to hospital complaining of chest pains, reports said. A Toyota technician who rushed to the scene to assess the problem said an investigation would be launched.
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard