HEALTH
Mung bean bad for skin: FDA
Applying mung bean powder on the face to prevent acne could eventually lead to cellulitis, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Monday. Some Internet rumors have suggested that using a facial mask made of mung bean powder could improve acne, as mung beans absorb excess oil and contain protein, calcium, carotene and vitamin B, but such rumors are false, the FDA said. Applying mung bean powder directly to the face could lead to irritation and peeling, and could develop into contact dermatitis, it said. For pimples that are already inflamed, there is a chance that they would turn into cellulitis if exposed to infected substances, it added.
TRANSPORTATION
Airport begins upgrades
Taichung International Airport on Monday began upgrades that are expected to increase its capacity by 1 million travelers per year, the Civil Aeronautics Administration said. The NT$990 million (US$32.45 million) project, scheduled to be completed in 2022, would enable the airport to handle 3.69 million passengers per year, agency Director-General Lin Kuo-hsien (林國顯) said at a groundbreaking ceremony. The airport last year saw a record-high 2.64 million passengers, up 10 percent from the prior year, agency data showed. The upgrades are to focus on the domestic terminal, adding one floor to the existing two-story building and connecting it to the international terminal, the agency said. Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that future improvement programs would allow the airport to handle more than 10 million visitors per year by 2040. Those projects would include better road connections, such as an expressway from the Qingshui Service Area on the Formosa Freeway (Freeway No. 3), he said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift