■ Crime
New hotline opens
The National Police Administration (NPA) introduced an"anti-fraud calls hotline service" yesterday and encouraged the public to use the service whenever they receive phone calls from people who threaten them and try to extort money. The hotline service is based inside the agency's headquarters and has eight police officers to take calls from around the country. The hotline began service immediately after NPA Director-General Shieh Ing-dan (謝銀黨) announced its launch yesterday afternoon. The hotline's number is 0800-018-110.
■ Transportation
MRT clean of Legionnaire's
The Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday that there was no sign of the bacteria that causes Legionnaire's disease, a highly contagious lung infection, in the cooling towers of MRT stations. Taipei City Councilor Pan Huai-chung (潘懷宗), a New Party member, yesterday said the TRTC had ignored the spread of the bacteria that causes Legionnaire's in the cooling towers of MRT stations, thereby exposing people to a highly dangerous environment. TRTC president Tsay Huei-sheng (蔡輝昇) said tests for the disease at 18 MRT stations turned up negative and the company has submitted its assay methods and results to the Center for Disease Control to see whether the TRTC's management meets the center's regulations. Chiu Chan-hsien (邱展賢), a division chief at Taipei City's Department of Health, said there's no need for the public to worry about the disease.
■ Tourism
SARS hurts trips to China
The reappearance of SARS in China has poured cold water on Taiwan's tourism industry. Tour operators are holding their breath to see if the situation worsens, according to an industry source. Since three suspected SARS cases were reported in Beijing and Anhui Province, nearly 30 percent of China-bound Taiwanese tourists have canceled their trips and the ratio is likely to increase to above 50 percent should the situation in China and Taiwan change noticeably, the source said yesterday. The impact on China-bound travel, however, is unlikely to be as bad as it was last year, except for trips to Beijing. If China's SARS situation gets worse, local tour agencies may first consider calling a halt to trips to Beijing, according to the source. The spread of SARS would also affect inbound travel to Taiwan, he said. Many tourism-related businesses have not yet fully recovered from last year's SARS epidemic, he said, as a result of a large drop in inbound travelers, especially those from Japan.
■ Society
Few trust politicians
Taiwan's election dispute has shattered peoples' trust in the government so much that they trust fortune-tellers and shamans more than they trust the president and the judiciary, an opinion poll showed yesterday. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) won re-election by beating opposition leader Lien Chan (連戰) by 29,000 votes, a margin of 0.02 percentage points. The poll showed that 34 percent of a total of 579 company executives polled believe the election dispute can be solved through legal proceedings, while 52 percent don't believe so. It also showed 19 percent trust fortune-tellers, 18 percent trust lawyers and 14 percent trust the president. The poll also indicated that only a scant of 2.76 percent of the interviewees trust lawmakers, while 7.43 percent trust shamans.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but