MILITARY
Tsai lauds military response
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday praised the nation’s armed forces for performing well when China’s aircraft carrier and its escort ships sailed through the Taiwan Strait earlier this month. The Chinese aircraft carrier the Liaoning and its accompanying warships passed through the Taiwan Strait on Jan. 11, prompting the air force and other military branches to closely monitor the group’s movements. During a lunch with military officers and servicepeople at the Ministry of National Defense, Tsai lauded members of the armed forces for handling the situation well at a time when she was visiting the nation’s allies in Central America. She said the only goal of national defense reform is to build a strong and competent force that is combat-ready.
CRIME
Eight Thai women arrested
Police yesterday said they have arrested eight Thai women suspected of being involved in the sex trade in Miaoli County, but are still trying to identify who was responsible for bringing them into the county. The Thai nationals, aged between 20 and 30, were offering sex services at a rented apartment in Jhunan Township (竹南), police said. The women entered the country using the visa-free access Taiwan offers to Thai travelers, police said. They were taken to Jhunan by unidentified handlers soon after their arrival in Taiwan and allegedly began to sell 30-minute sessions for NT$2,200, police said. Law enforcement officials raided the apartment on Friday, arresting the women and an 18-year-old Taiwanese man, surnamed Wu (吳), allegedly responsible for attending to the women’s daily needs. Wu was sent to the district prosecutors office on suspicions of having committed obscenity offenses, while the Thai women were taken to the National Immigration Agency’s Miaoli office.
TRANSPORT
Airport passengers surge
The passenger volume at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport increased 9.94 percent to a record 42.3 million last year, data released by the Taiwan International Airport Co yesterday showed. Passenger traffic reached 38.47 million in 2015, but broke the 40 million mark last year, which led to an upgrade in the airport’s service quality rating by the Airport Council International (ACI), the company said. ACI’s Airport Service Quality (ASQ) is a global benchmarking program aimed at measuring the level of satisfaction of passengers traveling through an airport. In terms of cargo transport, the volume at Taoyuan airport reached 2.081 tonnes last year, an increase of nearly 76,000 tonnes or 3.78 percent, from 2015, the data showed.
TRAVEL
Lake’s cycling path lauded
A cycling route in Nantou County’s Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) area was chosen by global travel search engine Skyscanner as one of the world’s top eight cycle paths. “You can bring your family members to ride slowly on the smooth bike path to experience the Sun Moon Lake’s paradise-like view from a whole new perspective; or you can challenge yourself to complete the 33km-long round-the-lake path,” an article posted on the Web site on Tuesday last week showed. Other than Sun Moon Lake, Skyscanner said, the most desirable bike paths include those in the Grand Canyon, US; Bohemia, Czech Republic; Udaipur, India; Burgundy, France; Easter Island; Havana, Cuba and Hiroshima, Japan.
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