TRAVEL
Trains busier than last year
Taiwanese made more than 10 million trips on the nation’s regular and high-speed trains during the Lunar New Year holiday earlier this month, data showed yesterday. Taiwan Railways Administration recorded more than 8.07 million trips, while Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp logged more than 1.93 million during the period between Feb. 7 and Monday. On the regular railways, the average number traveling daily was 673,000, a 10.7 percent increase over last year. On Thursday last week, the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, a peak of 841,000 people used the railways compared with 746,000 last year. The average daily number of trips on the high-speed rail was 161,000, up 6.8 percent from last year.
CHARITY
Police take in walker
Police said yesterday that they recently provided food and shelter to a Japanese man who is on a walking tour around the nation to say thanks for the assistance given to his country after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. Norio Sasaki, 38, who is pulling his belongings in a cart, stopped at a police station in Douliou (斗六) and asked if there was a room for him to stay the night, the Yunlin County Police Department said. In the interests of service and safety, officers offered him a bed in the station’s dormitory, dinner and a hot shower, the department said. Sasaki said he was deeply touched by Taiwan’s response with rescue teams and donations after the massive earthquake and tsunami struck Japan on March 11, 2011. His walking tour around Taiwan is his way of expressing his gratitude, Sasaki said. Sasaki, who is from Okinawa, has made similar trips to Australia and New Zealand to say thank you.
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
HOSPITALITY HIT: Hotels in Hualien have an occupancy rate of 10 percent, down from 30 percent before the earthquake, a Tourism Administration official said The Executive Yuan yesterday unveiled a stimulus package of vouchers and subsidies to revive tourism in Hualien County following a quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale. The tremor on April 3, which killed at least 17 people and left two others missing, caused the county an estimated NT$3 billion (US$92.7 million) in damages. The Ministry of Economic Affairs is to issue vouchers worth NT$200 at the price of NT$100 for purchases at the Dongdamen Night Market (東大門夜市) in Hualien City to boost spending, a ministry official told a news conference after a Cabinet meeting in Taipei. The ministry plans to issue 18,400