The nation reported 3,546 suicides last year, with males outnumbering females two to one, according to statistics released yesterday by the Taiwanese Society of Suicidology ahead of World Suicide Prevention Day today.
The data showed that 2,364 males and 1,182 females committed suicide last year, with 32 percent of them aged from 25 to 44 years old. Of the total, 38 percent were middle-aged — 45 to 64 years old — 24 percent were over 65 years old, 4 percent were aged from 15 to 24 years old, while there were two deaths of under-14 year olds, the statistics show.
For 13 consecutive years, from 1997 to 2009, suicide was among the top-10 causes of death in the nation and the number reached a high in 2006 of 4,406, the report said.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare urged people to offer help to those who exhibit suicidal tendencies.
With a suicide rate of 12 per 100,000 people, Taiwan is relatively high on the global list of countries with the high suicide rates, according to the WHO.
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
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