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One of the top stories from this past week was that Taiwan and China agreed to allow Chinese tourists to make stopovers in Taiwan. Under current rules, Chinese tourists may not transit through Taiwan on overseas trips. Taiwan’s top official in charge of cross-strait exchanges, Lin Join-sane, announced the decision on Wednesday.
Lin said that no date has been set, as the Chinese side still has preparations to make.
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Also this past week, an outbreak of dengue fever continues to ravage southern Taiwan. The central government has set up a center to manage the outbreak.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has said the outbreak is likely to peak in late October before subsiding. The CDC said on Thursday that the total number of cases could reach 30,000 to 37,000 by then, depending on how effective disease control efforts are.
As of Sunday, Taiwan has recorded 12,766 dengue fever cases. The southern cities of Tainan and Kaohsiung remain the worst affected by the mosquito-borne disease, accounting for 99% of the reported cases.
Dengue fever is an infectious tropical disease with symptoms that include fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, and skin rash. In a small number of cases, the disease can develop into hemorrhagic dengue fever, which can be fatal.
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And finally, this past week, Taiwan has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030.
The Environmental Protection Administration unveiled the emissions reduction goal on Thursday. That’s ahead of an upcoming meeting in Paris by member states of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Although Taiwan is not a UNFCCC member, it has nevertheless decided to set a target in order to contribute to the global effort to combat climate change.
The Environmental Protection Administration hopes that Taiwan’s greenhouse gas emissions will decrease to around 240 million tons by 2030, roughly half of the estimated emissions level by then.