SOCIETY
Malaysian in coma
A Malaysian man rescued from an Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) harbor on Saturday afternoon was still unconscious yesterday, police said. The 22-year-old, identified by his surname, Chay, has been in a coma since he was pulled from the water, and has been transferred from the island’s medical center to the Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taitung, they said. Doctors in Taichung said the man was at level 3 on the Glasgow coma scale, with 3 being the worst condition and 15 being normal wakefulness. An initial investigation found that Chay, who was at the harbor with friends, got into difficulty after jumping into the water. Chay might have hit his head on a concrete tetrapod, according to his friends’ accounts, but an investigation is continuing, police said. Chay is in Taiwan on a working holiday visa and was working at an inn on Orchid Island, they said.
PHILATELY
Taipei to host 2020 show
One of the largest stamp exhibitions in Asia is to take place in Taipei from Oct. 23 to 26 next year, the fifth time the exhibition will be held in Taiwan. The 38th Asian International Stamp Exhibition is to be hosted by Chunghwa Post and will hopefully give exhibition-goers an understanding of different stamps’ history, geography and culture and inspire the younger generation to collect stamps. The theme of the exhibition is to be “Between Stamp Squares: Taking You on a Trip.” It would invite stamp collectors and philatelists from the 30 member countries of the Federation of Inter-Asian Philately, including from China, to the event, Chunghwa Post said. China did not attend the 2016 exhibition in Taipei, and it is unclear if it would send a delegation to next year’s event. Registration for the show in Taipei World Trade Center Hall 1 opened on Thursday, Chunghwa Post said.
TRAVEL
Philippines popular spot
Taiwanese visitors to the Philippines in June rose by more than 50 percent year-on-year, sustaining the growth that has made the Philippines one of the fastest-growing destinations in Asia for local travelers. A total of 32,019 Taiwanese visited the Philippines that month, up 55.42 percent from the 20,601 visitors in June last year, Tourism Bureau statistics showed. In the first six months of the year, Taiwanese departures to the Philippines rose 30.6 percent from the same period a year earlier to 160,117, making it the third-fastest growing outbound market in Asia — behind Brunei (474.48 percent) and the United Arab Emirates (97.66 percent), which benefit from much lower baselines. Though Taiwanese visits to the Philippines still lagged well behind those to Thailand (406,624) and Vietnam (401,595) so far this year, they exceeded the number of trips to Malaysia (149,756) and were closing in on visits to Singapore (192,092). Taiwan was the Philippines’ sixth-largest source of foreign tourists last year, Philippines Department of Tourism data showed.
EARTHQUAKE
Temblor rocks Hualien
A magnitude 3.9 earthquake hit Hualien County at 2:25pm yesterday, but there were no reports of injuries or damage. The quake was centered about 35.9km southwest of Hualien County Hall and struck at a depth of 5km, the Central Weather Bureau’s Seismology Center said. The earthquake’s intensity was highest in Jici Village (磯崎), where it measured 4 on the nation’s 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 3 in Shueilian Village (水璉) and 2 in Silin Village (西林), the bureau said.
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