■ National defense
Texas conference opens
The three-day US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference opened yesterday in San Antonio, Texas. Vice Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) will give a keynote speech today on the nation's defense needs, which will be followed by an address by Admiral Denis Blair, former commander-in-chief of the US Pacific Command. A seminar on the development of Taiwan's defense industry and C41SR -- communications, computers, control, command and intelligence -- was also scheduled for yesterday. US Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs Richard Lawless was to deliver a speech at a dinner party last night. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Randy Schriver will address a breakfast meeting tomorrow and the conference will finish with a series of panel discussions tomorrow morning.
■ Religion
Buddhist text now on CD
The Taipei-based Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association (CBETA) is scheduled to publish on Saturday a digital copy of the Taisho Tripitaka, with an appendix of analytical notes. The Tripitaka is one of the major Buddhist classics of scriptures and contains three long canonical texts of Buddhism -- the Vinayapitaka, the Suttapitaka and the Abhidhammapitaka. The Chinese-language Taisho Tripitaka with Text critical Notes Vols. 1 to 55 & 85 -- a giant compilation of 80 million characters -- will be available on CD-ROM and on the Internet, said a CBETA spokeswoman. The painstaking work was made possible after the CBETA acquired authorization from Japan's Nihon Tripitaka Publishing Company, which owns the copyright on the Taisho version of the Buddhist classic, according to the spokeswoman.
■ Iraq
New Party blasts US plans
The New Party caucus of the Taipei City Council yesterday launched a plan to oppose any US-led attack on Iraq. Appealing to the public to sign an anti-war petition, the councilors urged the US to resolve its issues with Iraq through peaceful means. The New Party caucus also said it was considering holding an anti-war rally. All five of the councilors urged the US to avoid war, which they said might hurt an already sluggish global economy. The councilors also warned that Washington's determination to attack Iraq without UN approval might become justification for China to use force against Taiwan. New Party councilor Fei Hung-tai (費鴻泰) said the party will set up a stand in front of the Taipei Train Station to collect signatures from the public for the anti-war petition, which would later be forwarded to the American Institute in Taiwan.
■ Aviation
US to sign safety accord
The US is set to sign a Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement with Taipei in September, a report here said yesterday. The accord, under which Taiwanese-made aeronautical and sophisticated machinery products could be granted US accreditation, would help pry the door open for local manufacturers into the US market, a Chinese-language newspaper said. Officials from the Civil Aeronautics Administration declined to comment on the report. In light of the political sensitiveness of the agreement, the government and the US Federal Aviation Administration have conducted their negotiations secretly over the past six years, the paper said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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