■ Cross-Strait Ties
Immigrants near capacity
The detention center for illegal Chinese immigrants in Ilan has reached saturation point, resulting in manage-ment difficulties, Huang Chin-yao (黃錦耀), deputy director of the center, said yesterday. Huang said that Ilan has two places to house illegal Chinese immigrants, one of which accommodates 1,073 females and the other that holding 264 male illegal immigrants. He said that since March 12 Beijing has refused to pick up any of the illegal immigrants for repatriation, so the number of detainees has increased rapidly. But as the female section has reached saturation point and the facility is undermanned, the center has had to hire extra personnel from outside the police force to make up for the deficiencies.
■ Health
Free flu shots to be offered
Taiwan's Department of Health will offer free influenza vaccinations later this year for children aged over six months but under two years, a Center for Disease Control (CDC) official said yesterday. Yen Cho-chie (顏哲傑) said that the CDC has purchased 2.5 million doses of flu vaccine this year and that over 300,000 children will be able to get the free shots this winter. Yen, who heads the CDC vaccination division, indicated that not only infants but also those aged above 65 and medical, health care and quarantine personnel, as well as those in the animal husbandry industry, are also eligible for free vaccinations. According to local pediatricians, children under two are at high risk of contracting flu. Statistics show that some 500 to 700 of every 100,000 children in this age group suffer from flu and require hospital care each year, officials said.
■ Society
End to child-beating sought
Education Minister Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) joined 30 other government officials as well as parents and children yesterday in a campaign against corporal punishment. The campaign, organized by the Humanistic Education Foundation, was aimed at "building a country that does not beat children." In a show of his support for the goal, Tu led the repre-sentatives and officials from local education bureaus on a bicycle ride to break a barricade symbolizing "the bad habit of punishing children physically." He also signed a "passport of love" -- an agreement that promises to spare the rod. According to the minister, it is a practice among civilized countries not to beat children, and he urged parents to set down some rules with their child-ren instead of resorting to physical punishment to train them in self-discipline. Huang Pi-hsia, director of the Children's Bureau under the Ministry of the Interior, noted that there were more than 5,300 reported cases of child abuse last year, most of which were physical abuse.
■ Culture
Taiwan festival set for US
The fifth Taiwan Day cultural festival is set to open Sept. 10 in Rhode Island, New York, with artists from Taiwan invited to participate in the event for the first time, officials of the Taipei Econ-omic and Cultural Office in New York said Friday. While only performing groups made up of Taiwanese expatriates in the United States took part in the event in the past four years, this year's festival will feature the Taipei Folk Dance Theatre, as well as kite designer Huang Bu-teo (黃景楨), the officials said. The dance troupe has performed more than 600 shows in over 40 countries in Europe, America, Asia and Africa since 1988, but this will be its first trip to Rhode Island, the officials said.
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Taiwan yesterday issued warnings to four Chinese coast guard vessels that intruded into restricted waters around the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Islands, according to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA). The four China Coast Guard ships were detected approaching restricted waters south of Kinmen at around 2 pm yesterday, the CGA’s Kinmen-Matsu Branch said in a statement. The CGA said it immediately deployed four patrol boats to closely monitor the situation. When the Chinese ships with the hull numbers "14512," "14609," "14603" and "14602" separately entered the restricted waters off Fuhsing islet (復興嶼), Zhaishan (翟山), Sinhu (新湖) and Liaoluo (料羅) at 3 pm, the Taiwanese patrol
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56