■Legislature
Nationality redefined
The Legislative Yuan yester-day approved a bill to ratify the status of people from Hong Kong, Macau and China to that of non-overseas Chi-nese, as the new law defines that "overseas Chinese are those who live in foreign countries." A clause of the "statute on the identification of overseas Chinese" (華僑身 份証明條例) stipulates that residents of Hong Kong, Macau and China or holders of Chinese passports will
no longer be viewed as overseas Chinese. This will legalize the obligations and rights promulgated for overseas Chinese in admin-istrative regulations. A separate new statute rede-fines the ROC's Mongolian and Tibetan minorities as those people who are ROC citizens, have at least one parent who is a direct descendent of a Mongolian
or Tibetan and who have household registration in Taiwan.
■ Legislature
Nursing home rules eased
The legislature yesterday revised the rules for retired servicemen who want to live in state-run nursing homes. Under the revision, ex-soldiers who are injured on duty may also apply to live in nursing homes at public expense, not just those with war-related injuries. PFP lawmakers had pushed for the changes. Family members of qualified veterans will also be able to apply for a room in the same residences, although they will have to pay their own expenses. Some veterans have given up the right to live in state-run nursing homes because they didn't want to be separated from family members.
■ Health
Donations a family affair
The gift of life is a family affair for a husband and wife in Taipei who both donated bone marrow to overseas patients over the last year. The Stem Cell Center of Tzu Chi Buddhist General Hospital reported yesterday that a 44-year-old man recently donated bone marrow for a 28-year-old British woman suffering from leukemia. His wife also donated bone marrow in January 2001 to a boy in South Korea. Nearly 237,800 people nationwide have registered with the center as potential bone-marrow donors.
■ Diplomacy
Honduran visits Keelung
Mayor Marlon Guillermo Lara Orellana of Cortes, Honduras visited Keelung yesterday and pledged to push for the establishment of sister-city ties. In a meeting with Keelung Mayor Hsu Tsai-li (許財利), Lara said that he was pleased the two cities have been increasing exchanges and he noted that the two harbors have already established relations. He said Keelung and Cortes can learn from one another. He said that he wants to learn more from Taiwan, espe-cially about municipal administration, and he praised Keelung as a prosperous and beautiful city. Hsu expressed hope that the two cities will further increase bilateral exchanges and cooperation.
■ Travel
Japan eases restrictions
Japan has eased restrictions on senior officials visiting Taiwan on official business. Under the revised rules, officials at levels higher
than section chiefs can
now travel to Taiwan to negotiate on issues regard-ing major international organizations of which
both Taiwan and Japan are members. The new rules also stipulate that applications by higher-level officials to visit for negotiations on WTO affairs or other international matters can be handled with a "soft" or flexible approach.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching