■ TOURISM
Kaohsiung to increase links
Kaohsiung is expected to launch direct air links with the Chinese cities of Qingdao and Tianjin in the middle of this month, which will help boost tourism in southern Taiwan, a tourism industry representative said yesterday. Also, the number of flights between Kaohsiung and China will almost triple to 38 per week, said Lin Fu-nan (林富男), leader of an alliance of tourism-related businesses in the Kaohsiung and Pingtung areas. Lin said the increase in the number of flights was agreed upon during cross-Strait aviation talks last month in Taipei and is the result of lobbying efforts by the alliance. At present, Kaohsiung International Airport maintains direct air links with eight Chinese cities — Fuzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Xiamen.
■ SOCIETY
Fireworks act revised
Parents who let children under the age of 12 play with fireworks unsupervised are now punishable under a recently revised law. The revised Firework and Firecracker Management Act (爆竹煙火管理條例) was implemented on Wednesday, changing fireworks categories and increasing punishments for violations, the National Fire Agency said. The agency said parents or guardians face fines of between NT$3,000 and NT$15,000 if their children are caught playing with fireworks without supervision. Previously, the law only required them to accompany their children while playing, and there was no punishment if they failed to do so. Selling fireworks to children remains illegal and violators can still be fined between NT$30,000 and NT$150,000 under the revised act.
■ HEALTH
Encephalitis claims life
A woman in Tainan City infected with Japanese encephalitis died on Wednesday, a senior health official said on Thursday. Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director Lin Ting (林頂) said the woman might have caught the disease at the pig farm where she worked in neighboring Tainan County. The disease’s carrier, Culex tritaeniorhynchus mosquitoes, were found at the farm after she was diagnosed. The woman began showing flu-like symptoms on May 18 and went to several clinics over the following days. However, she was not diagnosed with Japanese encephalitis until she was taken to National Cheng Kung University Hospital as her condition worsened, Lin said, adding that the local government cleaned and sprayed pesticide in the area and urged the public to take action against mosquitoes to prevent disease transmission.
■ AGRICULTURE
Pingtung going bananas
Pingtung County Government has begun to buy bananas from local farmers at eight locations to help prop up the fruit’s slumping price, in line with an initiative launched by the Council of Agriculture (COA). The COA announced late last month that it would guide food processors to buy bananas for NT$5 per kilogram to boost flagging demand. Pingtung officials said yesterday that they had begun to comply. According to the county’s Agricultural Department, demand for bananas has been crowded out by the harvests of many other summer fruits like mangoes, pineapples and watermelons, causing prices to fall. “Bananas have been unable to compete with the juicy fruits,” the department said. The COA set a goal of purchasing 3,000 tonnes of healthy green bananas weighing under 6kg per bundle.
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all