AID
More donations for Thailand
The government has donated US$1 million to Thailand to help with the country’s flood relief efforts, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said on Tuesday, adding that the government made the decision after hearing a report by Chung Chien (鍾堅), a National Security Council councilor who had visited Taiwanese businesspeople in the kingdom. The donation will be on top of a US$100,000 contribution made last month in the wake of the country’s worst flooding in 50 years. The Thai-Taiwan Business Association and other expatriate groups in Thailand have raised NT$11.2 million that will be donated to help with its relief and rescue efforts. Thailand has also received more than NT$1.62 million from Taiwanese and Thai nationals living in Taiwan, the Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei said on Monday.
SOCIETY
Final push for Yushan vote
Yushan National Park Headquarters urged the public to step up voting for Yushan as one of the world’s “New 7 Wonders of Nature” before the contest ends tomorrow. Yushan needs a massive number of votes to avoid elimination, park headquarters officials said. Yushan is among the 28 finalists in the four-stage contest that began three years ago. The mountain — the highest peak in the nation and in East Asia — has been gaining votes slowly, according to the competition Web site. The current top 10 finalists in alphabetical order are the Dead Sea in Israel, the Grand Canyon in the US, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Halong Bay in Vietnam, Jeita Grotto in Lebanon, Jeju Island in South Korea, Indonesia’s Komodo island, the PP Underground River in the Philippines, the Sundarbans in India and Bangladesh and Vesuvius in Italy. Votes for Yushan can be cast at http://n7w.ysnp.gov.tw or www.new7wonders.com. Cellphone users can send a text message to 55123, saying “yushan.”
HEALTH
Free hepatitis checks offered
A hepatitis-screening program will be provided to the public free of charge on Saturday at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, the Liver Disease Prevention and Treatment Research Foundation announced yesterday. The program will be held on the anniversary of Republic of China founding father Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) birth in 1866. Sun died of liver disease on March 12, 1925. Sheu Jin-chuan (許金川), a doctor specializing in hepatitis, said public awareness about liver disease needed to be enhanced. “Only one-third of the 3 million hepatitis B carriers in Taiwan, for example, know about their health condition, leaving 2 million at risk of developing more serious complications,” he said, adding that regular screening was necessary to prevent late-stage diagnosis and promote early-stage detection. The program is free for all Taiwanese above the age of 26.
TRAVEL
Luggage hurts CAL plane
The passengers on a China Airlines (CAL) flight, including two Cabinet ministers, were evacuated yesterday after the plane was rammed by a luggage van on the tarmac at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Passengers were boarding the aircraft when the truck ran into it. The pilot ordered passengers to evacuate and the airline deployed another aircraft for the flight to Hawaii. Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) and Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德), who were heading for APEC meetings in Hawaii, were among the 275 passengers. The flight eventually departed at 4pm, 90 minutes behind schedule.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai
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