Public health: Heart disease prevalent
About one out of every five senior citizens has heart disease, according to the results of an annual national health survey released by the Department of Health yesterday. The agency interviewed 18,000 residents over 12 years old late last year for last year's national health report. The report said an estimated 1.45 million local citizens over 12 years old had heart diseases and that the incidence rate was particularly high among those over 65 years old. According to the report, 6.2 percent of the respondents said they had been informed by medical professionals that they had heart disease. Almost 24 percent of those people were older than 65. Of the heart disease patients, 46.1 percent have suffered from hypertension; 17.7 percent are also diabetic; and 8.2 percent have suffered strokes.
Military: Singapore report denied
The government yesterday denied news reports that Singapore plans to move training camps for its troops from Taiwan to China. "The news report is not true," defense ministry spokesman Huang Sueh-sheng (黃穗生) told reporters. "When Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀) met with National Security Council Deputy Secretary General Chang Jung-feng (張榮豐) last week, they did not discuss the withdrawal of Singapore troops," Huang said. On Sunday, a local Chinese-language newspaper report said that Singapore had decided to move the training of its troops from Taiwan to Hainan Island. Lee Kuan Yew mentioned Singapore's decision when he visited Taiwan last week, the report said, quoting unnamed sources. Last year, Jane's Defence Weekly magazine said that China, to sabotage Singapore-Taiwan ties, has offered its Hainan island as a base for Singaporean training camps.
Territory dispute: Lee says islands Japanese
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) has said the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, controlled by Japan but claimed by Taiwan and China, actually belong to Japan, according to an interview carried in a local daily in Okinawa yesterday. According to the article in the Okinawa Times, Lee said, "The land of the Senkaku Islands belongs to Okinawa, therefore it is a territory of Japan. There is no evidence for China's territorial claim, no matter what it says. It is not clear which international law China's claim is based on." The island group is known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands, Tiaoyutai in Taiwan and Diaoyu in China. The comment will likely cause repercussions in China and Taiwan as Beijing considers the islands belong to Taiwan and thus to China, experts said. Taipei thinks the islands are inherent to Taiwan.
Falun gong: Group linked to Taiwan
The Falun Gong is using Taiwan as a base for a campaign of interrupting Chinese state satellite television broadcasts, Chinese state media said yesterday. Falun Gong broadcasts tracked to Taipei had "severely affected" satellite broadcasts of China Central Television (CCTV) and other stations in China from Sept. 9 to 21, the official Xinhua news agency quoted broadcasting official Liu Lihua as saying. In June, Falun Gong members also interrupted several Chinese television satellite broadcasts with messages supporting their group. China last week jailed 15 Falun Gong members for up to 20 years after convicting them of interrupting cable television broadcasts in two cities in March.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry