■ Health
Stop smoking and win
The Department of Health yesterday urged smokers to join the biennial international Quit and Win stop-smoking competition. The competition, endorsed by the World Health Organization, would award one participant who successfully abstains from smoking between May 2 and May 29 with a prize of US$10,000. In addition, one participant registered in Taiwan will receive a NT$600,000 cash prize and another six participants will get prizes of NT$10,000 each. According to the Bureau of Health Promotion, 37.2 percent of the contestants who participated two years ago remained smoke-free one year later. Contestants must sign up before April 30. More information is available at www.quitandwin.org.tw or by calling (02) 2776-6133.
■ Traffic
Taipei bridges closed
Municipal authorities started to make security checks yesterday of 13 key bridges in Taipei and will continue the inspections until April 16 to ensure the public's safety. The 13 medium-sized and large-sized bridges scattered across the city, such as the Peiling Bridge in the Shihlin District and the Jingmei Bridge in the Wenshan District, will be wholly or partially closed for security checks from midnight until 5am each day during the inspection period, according to a spokesman for the Bureau of Public Works' Department of Maintenance. Pedestrians and vehicles using the bridges and adjacent areas should proceed slowly and with caution and keep a close watch on traffic lights and nearby maintenance facilities, the spokesman said.
■ Election
DPP says blues must pay
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus suggested yesterday that the pan-blue alliance use its election subsidy to serve as the deposit for a ballot recount of the March 20 presidential election. Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), DPP whip in the legislature, said that the Code of Civil Procedure (刑事訴訟法) stipulates that if a client will not pay for the expenditure, the court cannot carry out the recount. The DPP has, therefore, suggested that the pan-blue alliance use its subsidy, or NT$30 per vote garnered, to serve as the deposit. Pan-blue presidential candidate, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), and his running mate, People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), garnered 6,442,452 votes. "The people have no obligation to pay the estimated more than NT$100 million [as a deposit]," Tsai said, adding that it is "illegal and unreasonable" and the DPP "strongly opposes such a move." He said that Lien and Soong could use their more than NT$190 million subsidy to serve as the deposit for the vote recount, and that the party that loses the suit will pay the expenses.
■ Legislature
Hurry up, Liu says
Cabinet Secretary-General Liu Shih-fang (劉世芳) yesterday urged the Legislative Yuan to hurry back to its review work. She said that the review of many major economic bills has been put on hold since the presidential election, adding that even in the heat of the presidential election campaign, the legislative process had not stalled. She said that, since the election, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance has been only concerned about the recount of the ballots and an investigation into the shooting of the president.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
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