■Culture
Aussie festival starts today
Dream Community (夢想社區) in Taipei's Hsichih (汐止) district is scheduled to launch a cultural event, entitled Australian Community Culture Festival, at the community center this afternoon. According to the community's spokesperson, Pika Chiu (邱坤定), the event is held to introduce the spirit of "bushcraft" -- or outdoor skills. The community hopes to better the Taiwanese people's understanding of wildness survival skills, so as to improve their creativity and interaction society. It also hopes to show the nation's vitality to international society through such cross-cultural exchanges. The event officially begins at 3pm today. An Australian-style barbecue is also scheduled to be held at 6:30pm. For more information, please contact the community at (02) 2695-9393.
■ Mask shortage
Lien gives masks to hospital
KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) yesterday donated 7,000 surgical masks to National Taiwan University Hospital to help physicians and nurses there combating SARS. Lee Cheng-chung (李正宗), head of the KMT's social department said the masks were donated to the hospital because of the grave situation it faces in fighting the disease as well as the mask shortage faced by its frontline medical staff. On Thursday, Lien's wife, Lien Fang-yu (連方瑀), accused the government of acting like "bandits" when she went to the CKS Airport to pick up 2,000 surgical masks donated by overseas Chinese. She was asked on the spot to pay a tax of NT$23,000 for them. Upset by the tax, Lien Fang-yu called on the government to issue an emergency decree lifting steep duties on the masks.
■ Happy meals
Workers get free lunch
To cheer up medical staff from Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital (和平醫院) who are currently under SARS quarantine at Taipei's Keeho Public Housing Complex (基河國宅), McDonald's Taiwan is scheduled to deliver free meals to staffers at noon. According to the Taiwan branch of the fast-food giant, the company is scheduled to deliver special toys and hot meals to the housing complex, so as to show its support to those medical workers. In related news, the Eurasian Publishing Group (圓神) also announced that the company is willing to donate one free book to each of the SARS quarantinees in order to help them undergo the quarantine.
■ Casualties
Kaohsiung doctor dies
Lin Yung-hsiang (林永祥), a resident doctor at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in southern Taiwan, died of SARS yesterday, becoming the second doctor in Taiwan to succumb to the atypical pneumonia. Lin's death came a day after Lin Chung-wei (林重威), a resident at the sealed off Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital, fell victim to the highly contagious disease at a Taipei hospital. Chang Gung Memorial Hospital President Chen Chao-lung (陳肇隆) said Lin contracted the virus while caring for a patient from Taipei's Jenchi Hospital -- the second Taiwan medical facility to have been sealed off due to a SARS outbreak. Lin began to show SARS symptoms May 4, Chen said, adding that the hospital had formed an expert team to treat Lin. "We made every possible effort, but to no avail," he said regretfully. Chen praised Lin as a "warrior in white" in the nation's current campaign against SARS. Lin, 28, graduated from Kaohsiung Medical College. He got married less than a year ago.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
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