WEATHER
Wu to give rebuilding update
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) is scheduled to give an international press conference on Monday next week on the progress of reconstruction work in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot. Morakot hit Taiwan on Aug. 8, 2009, leaving 724 people dead or missing. At a Cabinet meeting yesterday, Wu pushed government agencies to expedite work on repairing bridges and roads, or building new ones, in rural and mountainous areas battered by the typhoon. As the typhoon season is now in full swing with another storm approaching, Wu called on the Ministry of the Interior and local governments to make sure evacuation and settlement plans are in place, and that rescuers and voluntary workers organized by the Council of Agriculture are fully prepared.
Photo: CNA
TRAVEL
Caution urged over Xinjiang
Travelers to Xinjiang should exercise extreme caution because the region has experienced a new outbreak of violence in recent days, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. Citing Chinese media reports, the council said in a statement that on Saturday, two bombs shook the streets of Kashgar. An hour after the blasts, two attackers hijacked a truck on a nearby street, killed its driver and then drove it into a crowd of pedestrians. The attackers then got out of the truck and began stabbing passers-by. The incident left seven people dead and 28 injured. Less than 24 hours later, a larger group of men carried out a second attack in which six people were killed and 28 injured. The council advised Taiwanese intending to travel to the region to be mindful of news updates and their own safety.
CRIME
Four vendors indicted
Four people were indicted on Wednesday by the Miaoli District Prosecutors’ Office on charges of violating the Health Food Control Act (健康食品管理法) after they were allegedly found selling fake health foods and running TV ads to attract customers. Lin Li-chia (林李嘉), chief prosecutor at the office, said those indicted each owned a company selling health foods. They were found to be selling eight kinds of unregistered and uncertified products between October 2009 and September last year, making more that NT$700 million (US$24.24 million) off at least 100,000 unsuspecting victims, Lin said. Prosecutors discovered that consumers reported a variety of symptoms after consuming the products, such as constant diarrhea, headaches and vomiting.
MEDIA
GIO denies Wu involvement
Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Philip Yang (楊永明) yesterday denied a Democratic Progressive Party allegation that he forced the Central News Agency (CNA) to change a story headline on Wednesday regarding Premier Wu Den-yih’s (吳敦義) comments on the alleged threat that led taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) to withdraw an appeal against a controversial ruling. Yang said he contacted CNA because his staffers found the original headline to be inconsistent with Wu’s comments and did not reflect the content of the report. It is the GIO’s duty to ask the press to run corrections when there is incorrect news coverage about the government, he said. The headline initially read: “Wu admits he was aware ahead of time of Yang [Shu-chun]’s announcement to drop the appeal.” It was later changed to: “Wu fully supports Yang [Shu-chun] and the government has not changed its position on the matter.”
HISTORY
ROC photos displayed in UK
A photographic exhibition organized by the Taipei Representative Office in the UK and a local research institute opened in London on Wednesday to provide an overview of the unique history and development of the Republic of China (ROC). The opening reception of “Retracing Our Steps: A Photographic Journey Through the 100 Years of the ROC” was held that day in the Brunei Gallery at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. More than 70 photos are on display, recording important events in the ROC’s development, Taiwanese Representative to the UK Katharine Chang (張小月) said. Included in the exhibition is a photo depicting ROC founding father Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) taking office as provisional president on Jan. 1, 1912. There is also a photo of the Cairo Conference, where then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), then-US president Franklin Roosevelt and then-British prime minister Winston Churchill are sitting together. The exhibition will run through Aug. 30.
TOURISM
Hotel choices to be limited
The Tourism Bureau said it would soon limit the hotels where Chinese tour groups can stay to reduce travel disputes. The new policy is designed to improve travel quality and will take effect as early as the second half of next year, Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (賴瑟珍) said. Citing the five-star ratings system the bureau is pushing for, Lai said the lack of a unified rating system has become a major cause of disputes over travel arrangements. According to the bureau, there are 103 tourist hotels and more than 2,600 regular hotels in Taiwan, but only 116 of them are under the evaluation of the ratings system
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
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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