NATIONAL DEFENSE
China focuses on spying
China is boosting and diversifying its efforts to penetrate the military as exchanges across the Taiwan Strait increase, Minister of National Defense Yen Ming (嚴明) said yesterday in a call for the military to heighten its guard against spies. As seen by the number of espionage cases exposed in recent years, Beijing has stepped up its intelligence collection on Taiwan’s armed forces, posing a serious threat to the overall security of the military, Yen said at a military promotion ceremony. Besides improving internal management and boosting the awareness of confidentiality among active personnel, there is a need to increase awareness among retired personnel and their families, he said. He said China’s continued buildup and territorial disputes in the East China Sea and South China Sea are having a tremendous impact on regional stability, stressing that Taiwan must establish a streamlined, but capable defense force in the face of the military threat.
MILITARY
Ma touts transition progress
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday praised the development of military recruitment this year amid the armed forces’ shift to an all-volunteer force, noting that the number of new recruits exceeded the target for the year. Speaking at a ceremony held for officer promotions, Ma said that the military has selected about 14,000 new recruits, beating by 35 percent the goal of 10,500 volunteers. More than 30,000 people have applied to join the military, he said. More soldiers due to finish their service have also chosen to stay on instead of being discharged, he said. Ma said 59 percent of service men and women had agreed to stay on, up 13 percent from the previous two years. Ma also said that more women have enlisted. There are now 16,000 servicewomen in the nation’s military, representing 10.51 percent of all military personnel, a record high, he said. In a bid to transition to an all-volunteer force, the military has rolled out a series of incentives for career soldiers such as increasing pay and offering opportunities for further studies while serving.
AVIATION
Cross-strait flights agreed
Taiwan and China have reached an agreement to allow an unlimited number of additional cross-strait flights to accommodate Lunar New Year holiday travel next year, the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said yesterday. From Feb. 5 to March 5, airlines can offer as many flights as they like to any destination in China except for busy airports in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hangzhou, the CAA said. In those five cities, the number of extra flights will be restricted to 304 for each side. A total of 165 extra flights were approved for each side to Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, compared with only 105 during the Lunar New Year holiday this year. Also, no additional flights will operate between Shanghai Hongqiao Airport and Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), the CAA said. The extra flights would be added to the 840 scheduled cross-strait flights each week, the CAA said. Last year it was announced that Taiwan and China had agreed to raise the number of regular cross-strait flights from 558 to 616, allowing each nation to dispatch 308 cross-strait flights per week. Direct flights between the two nations only began again in 2008, when President Ma Ying-jeou came to power.
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:
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
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