TOURISM
Four Chinese injured
Four Chinese tourists with a tour group were injured after their bus rammed into the wall of a cliff along the South-Link Highway, police said yesterday. The crash occurred at around 2:30pm as the bus was heading toward Taitung on the mountain road, Pingtung police said. The injured were rushed to a hospital in Fangliao (枋寮), Pingtung County, for treatment. Of the four, a 50-year-old man, surnamed Jiang (江), had a broken rib, while the others sustained only minor injuries, police said. There was no immediate word on what caused the accident on the road connecting Taitung and Pingtung counties. The four injured passengers were part of an 18-person tour group from Shanghai. The crash marked the second transportation accident involving Chinese tourists in less than two weeks.
TOURISM
Taiwanese dies in Boracay
A 26-year-old Taiwanese woman who was visiting Boracay in the Philippines died suddenly on Saturday night, Taiwan’s representative office in the Philippines reported yesterday. The Taiwanese, surnamed Chien (錢), began having breathing difficulties while visiting a pub and was found in the pub’s restroom at about 8:30pm after apparently passing out, the office said. She was then rushed to a hospital, but was pronounced dead after doctors tried to revive her for three hours. The cause of death was still being investigated. Taiwan’s representative office said it had informed the woman’s family and would assist her relatives with follow-up arrangements. The 26-year-old Chien, who traveled with a group to the Philippines, was to return home tomorrow.
SCIENCE
Invention medals abound
Taiwan garnered 32 medals, including four gold and nine silver, at one of the world’s most prestigious invention fairs, which closed on Saturday in Paris. Taiwan presented 43 items at the Concours Lepine International Paris 2011, making it the second-largest competitor in the show, behind only France. The country’s gold-medal entries included an optical fiber drawing device for communications use and a wristwatch that can turn into a flotation device capable of supporting 700kg in an emergency. The other two winners were a device that produces electricity from a person’s breathing and a heat dissipation device. The youngest Taiwanese competitor was 12-year-old Hsieh Fu-yi (謝馥伊), a fifth-grader from northern Taiwan, who won a silver medal with a multi-functional bag made from a Hakka-style floral print fabric. Taiwanese competitors were also awarded 11 special bronze medals, meaning that all 43 of Taiwan’s entries received awards. Representative to France Michel Lu (呂慶龍) said that Taiwan’s big presence at the show and impressive showing underscored the country’s innovation and creativity.
SOCIETY
Feet-washers break record
Residents of Pingtung City shattered a Guinness World Record for “most people washing their feet” at the same time on Saturday to celebrate Mothers’ Day by tending to their mothers’ feet. A Guinness World Record adjudicator confirmed that 3,742 mother-child pairs accomplished the feat in sweltering 32°C heat, obliterating the previous record of 568 pairs set in Yilan County in May last year. Some of the mothers in attendance were more than 100 years old.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift