SOCIETY
Aquarium whale dies
A beluga whale at the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium in Pingtung County died on Wednesday of sepsis, museum authorities said yesterday. The whale, named Blue, had refused to eat and had shown symptoms of fever and a high white blood cell count for five days before its death, the officials said. An autopsy determined the cause of death as sub-acute sepsis due to a bacterial infection of unknown origin, the museum said. Blue was one of a second group of four belugas that the museum acquired from Russia eight years ago. The other three have already died. The last three surviving belugas at the museum are from an earlier group of six that arrived at the museum more than 10 years ago.
DIPLOMACY
Salvadorean minister visits
Taiwan and El Salvador are soon to sign a letter of intent on bilateral cooperation, solidifying the friendship between the two diplomatic allies, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said yesterday. While welcoming Salvadorean Foreign Minister Hugo Roger Martinez Bonilla at the Executive Yuan, Jiang said Taiwan is working to raise its international profile and hopes El Salvador will continue to support that effort. The premier expressed appreciation for the Central American country’s support for Taiwan’s participation in the WHO, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and other international bodies. He also extended an invitation for Salvadorean President Salvador Sanchez Ceren to visit Taiwan. Martinez said he is in Taiwan to celebrate the country’s National Day on Oct. 10 and to invite more businesspeople to invest in his country.
CULTURE
Precious stone heads abroad
The Meat-shaped Stone, one of the two most popular pieces in the National Palace Museum’s collection, is soon to be exhibited overseas for the first time. The 5.73cm-tall Qing Dynasty piece of banded jasper, carved to resemble a piece of braised pork belly, is to go on display for two weeks from Tuesday at the Kyushu National Museum in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The stone is likely to be shipped to Japan in the next day or two, but the exact date has not been divulged for security reasons. The piece is to be part of the “Treasured Masterpieces from the National Palace Museum, Taipei” exhibition of 110 items that is to run until Nov. 30 at the Kyushu museum. Among the artworks in the exhibition are paintings, embroideries, calligraphy, ceramics, bronze and jade objects.
HEALTH
Ebola response teams set up
Hospitals at the regional level and higher are to form specialized teams within two weeks to respond to any possible cases of Ebola, Centers for Disease Control deputy head Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said yesterday in the wake of a confirmed Ebola case in the US. The case — the first to be diagnosed outside Africa — flashed a “big warning signal” in the efforts to fight the Ebola epidemic. Chou said the Ministry of Health and Welfare has set aside funds to establish the response teams and has “prepared itself well to fight the battle.” Besides imposing the strictest level of quarantine measures on travelers from Africa, particularly west Africa, the ministry has also sent doctors to the region to obtain hands-on experience in fighting the disease, he said. As of last Friday, the total number of reported Ebola cases across Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal had reached 6,574, with 3,091 fatalities, according to the WHO.
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