■Japan
Koizumi lawsuit filed
More than 200 Taiwanese filed a lawsuit yesterday against the Japanese govern-ment and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi over his visits to Tokyo's contro-versial Yasukuni Shrine, a lawyer involved in the case announced. The suit was filed by 236 people, mainly relatives of Taiwanese who died in World War II, at the Osaka District Court. The suit demanded a total of Japanese Yen 2.36 million (US$19,700) in damages, or Japanese Yen 10,000 (US$83) per plaintiff in compensa-tion, saying Koizumi's visit to the shine violates Japan's Constitution, the lawyer said. On Jan. 14, Koizumi visited the shrine, which honors the 2.47 million Japanese who died in wars since 1869, including 14 Class-A war criminals. It was Koizumi's third visit to the shrine since he became prime minister two years ago. The lawyer said the plaintiffs suffered psycho-logical damage from Koi-zumi's visits to the shrine.
■ Environment
Cherry trees for Taiwan
A private Japanese group dedicated to promoting sakura (Japanese cherry blossom) plantation around the world has begun helping to grow more sakura trees around Taiwan, the Sankei Shumbun reported yester-day. The non-profit Ikuohkai (Japanese Sakura Cultiva-tion Society) sent 200 sakura seedlings to Taipei over the weekend, preparing for a presentation ceremony to be held today at the Ambas-sador Hotel, the report said. Ikuohkai president Tenkoko Sonoda will present the seedlings at the ceremony to former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) who will accept them on behalf of the Tai-wanese. The root of the idea of helping Taiwan grow sakura formed months ago when Tokyo socialite Kiyoko Ichimora visited Taiwan to learn Peking opera and found that many Taiwanese like the trees. Ichimora talked Sonoda into making the donation and the Ikuoh-kai decided to help grow at least 10,000 sakura trees, including a plantation near Sun Moon Lake, over the next several years, the paper reported. The first 200 seedlings will be planted at National Taiwan University's Agricultural and Forest Research Institute and later transplanted to Yangming-shan and in Hsinchu.
■ Diplomacy
Panamanian envoy in Taipei
Ambassador Ramel Adames, Panama's representative to the WTO, arrived in Taipei yesterday for a five-day visit. During the visit, Adames will call on Legislative Yuan Vice Speaker Chiang Ping-kun (江丙坤), Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kau Ying-mao (高英茂) and attend a luncheon hosted by Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Hwang (黃瀧元). He will also visit the National Palace Museum, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park and other places before departing on Friday.
■ Travel
New law affects visitors
Travelers to Russia should carry their immigration cards with them at all times in case of police checks, said a press release issued by the Ministry of Economic Affairs's Board of Foreign Trade yesterday. Visitors who fail to abide by the new regulation will be fined between US$70 and US$140 and could even be deported. The regulation was enacted to stem illegal immigrants from countries of the former Soviet Union because most of their nationals can enter Russia without applying for visas. Foreigners with or without visas are required to fill in immigration cards, which can now can be obtained at all Russian customs offices.
■Cross-strait ties
Illegal migrants nabbed
Twenty-three Chinese were caught at a small fishing port in Taipei County early yesterday, the Coast Guard Administration reported. Working on a tip-off, coast guard members lay in wait for two days at the Huangkang port before nabbing the 23 Chinese at around 2am yesterday in a van that had been awaiting them. Fifteen of the group were young women and dressed in revealing outfits, leading authorities to believe that they were going to work in the sex trade. The Coast Guard discovered that the Chinese were originally to be "delivered" in the small hours of Saturday to Huangkang. However, the skipper of the vessel transporting the Chinese did not make the delivery after he spotted police and undercover personnel at the port.
■ Politics
PFP calls for alliance
Members of the PFP caucus called on their KMT counterparts yesterday to discuss cooperation in the legislature. PFP party whips Chung Shao-ho (鍾紹和), Chiu Yi (邱毅), Chin Huei-chu (秦慧珠) and Cheng Chin-ling (鄭金玲) called on the KMT's Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權) and party whip Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻) to discuss a cooperation mechanism. Chung suggested that the two parties could consider jointly holding caucus meeting on major issues if necessary so that the cooperation will be closer. Chiu said that members of the caucus of the two parties should communicate regularly each week and jointly hold caucus meetings so that their members can communicate with each other and be consistent in their stance. "The people are watching if the PFP-KMT can cooperate and if the two parties can cooperate in the legislature, then the people will have confidence in such cooperation," Chiu added.
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
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
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