HEALTH
Dengue fever case confirmed
An indigenous case of dengue fever has been confirmed in Greater Kaohsiung following a group infection in Greater Tainan earlier this month, an official of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. A 12-year-old boy developed flu-like symptoms, including a fever and a rash, on May 12 and was taken to a hospital, where he tested positive for dengue fever antigen on May 16. However, the boy, who lives in Nanzih District (楠梓), was not confirmed to have dengue fever until Tuesday, said Liu Shih-hao (劉士豪), director of the CDC’s public relations office. The boy’s mother also tested positive for dengue, said Tsai Wu-hsiung (蔡武雄), director of the Kaohsiung Health Department’s Center for Disease Control. The annual high season for dengue fever runs from June through August, Liu said.
AGRICULTURE
Torrential rain causes losses
Agricultural losses have grown to NT$35.05 million (US$1.19 million) in seven counties and cities since May 17, when torrential rain began to batter those areas, Council of Agriculture statistics released yesterday showed. Because of the storm damage, the price of leafy vegetables rose to NT$26 per kilogram in Taipei’s fruit and vegetable wholesale markets from NT$21.5 per kilogram recorded on May 16, according to statistics posted on the council’s Web site. The council said that crop losses in Greater Taichung, Greater Kao-hsiung and Greater Tainan, along with Pingtung, Yunlin, Changhua and Nantou counties, were NT$34.6 million. The area of damage to crop-growing farmland reached 2,290 hectares, accounting for 14 percent of the total.
SOCIETY
Lessons for dog owners
Starting next year, would-be dog owners in New Taipei City (新北市) will be eligible for various free services for their pets if they attend a two-hour lesson on how to look after a pet properly, a city official said. The incentives include exemption from pet registration fees and free pet chip IDs, cremation and neutering subsidies worth about NT$4,000, it said. The new regulations will be promoted from the middle of July, after which the public will be encouraged to attend the class, which teaches responsible pet ownership, it said. The purpose of the regulations is to help combat the high level of pet abandonment.
SOCIETY
Marriage on the increase
The nation recorded 49,558 marriages between January and last month, an increase of 1.7 percent compared with the same period last year, according to Ministry of the Interior statistics. Among the married couples, 85.7 percent were Taiwanese and 14.3 percent were international marriages, the ministry said. The number of international marriages increased by 0.2 percentage points from the same period last year, the ministry said. The majority of cross-border marriages involved a Chinese spouse (63.1 percent), while Southeast Asian spouses accounted for 22.4 percent and the remaining 14.5 percent were from other countries, it said. The average age of a Taiwanese woman getting married for the first time rose last year to a record 29.4, while the average age of first-time grooms has remained at about 31.8 for the past two years, the data showed. The average age of men who were re-marrying was 44.2 years, while for women it was 38.2, a slight drop compared with 2010.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
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