■ Earthquake
SEF sends condolences
The Straits Exchange Foundation sent a message to its Chinese counterpart yesterday expressing concern about the aftermath of an earthquake that rocked Xinjiang yesterday. The foundation extended condolences and sympathies for victims of the magnitude-6.8 earthquake, which killed at least 265 people and injured 4,000 others. In its message to the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), the foundation also said the government is willing to offer assistance in post-disaster relief work.
■ Aviation
Man says he has explosives
A Taiwanese man, who was arrested after claiming to be carrying explosives aboard an Air Macau flight, will be deported after he was found to be mentally unstable, the Macau government said yesterday. The 29-year-old man was overpowered by flight crew on an Air Macau plane about to depart the territory for Taipei on Sunday night. No one was injured nor were any explosives found in the whole incident. Macau authorities have said the incident was not an attempted hijacking, but that the man had an emotional fit and had argued with crew members before the incident. Media reports said that the Taiwanese man, who was allegedly drunk, was angered after the flight was delayed. Air Macau Flight 612, with 154 passengers and six crew members, had been due to depart Macau International Airport for Taipei at 9:45pm on Sunday. The passengers on the flight boarded another flight for Taipei early Monday.
■ Society
Locals marry more foreigners
An increasing number of Taipei residents are marrying people from other countries, with more than 4,500 couples tying the knot in 2002, a jump of more than 10 percent over the previous year, Taipei City Government's Bureau of Civil Affairs said yesterday. Among the 4,500 couples, two-thirds of the spouses are from China, Hong Kong or Macau, or about 3,000 couples. Of the other couples, Vietnamese spouses accounted for 44 percent, followed by Indonesian at around 10 percent. In comparison, marriages between Taipei residents and people from China, Hong Kong and Macau increased by 18 percent compared with 2001, while marriages to other foreign spouses increased by 12 percent. In view of the growing number of foreign spouses, the Bureau of Civil Affairs will continue to hold seminars to help them integrate into life in this country. Bureau officials said that the seminars will open between April and July.
■ Diplomacy
Government to give to fund
The government will donate US$75,000 to a trust fund under the Organization of American States (OAS) to help finance young entrepreneurs training program, the ROC representative office in the US said Tuesday. Taiwan Representative to the US Chen Chien-jen (程建人) will donate the fund to the OAS on behalf of the government in a ceremony to be held at the OAS headquarters in Washington tomorrow. Chen will also sign a cooperative agreement with the OAS during the donation ceremony. Under the accord, Taiwan will send experts to assist in carrying out the manpower training program. The Taiwan donation will mainly be used to help enhance leadership and management capabilities of young entrepreneurs of Latin American countries that maintain diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Central and South America and the Carribean have been Taiwan's diplomatic stronghold.
■ Politics
KMT changes the rules
The KMT's Central Standing Committee decided yesterday to call a national congress March 30 to approve the party's ticket for next year's presidential election. The committee made the decision after approving a change to the party's rules on choosing presidential candidates to allow the candidate to choose a non-KMT member as running mate. Although the committee discussed nothing other than the rules governing the selection of party candidate, there is a consensus among the KMT and the PFP that they will field a joint ticket next year, with KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) as the candidate for president, and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) as candidate for the vice presidency.
■ Culture
French center honored
The Centre France-Asie, a charitable educational service group founded by the French Jesuits in 1920, has won the 2003 Taiwan-France Culture Award for its contribution to helping promote bilateral cultural exchanges. Tchen Yu-chiou (陳郁秀), chairwoman of Taiwan's Cabinet-level Council for Cultural Affairs, presented the award to the center Tuesday in a ceremony held at the Institute of France. Michel Aurillac, chairman of the French-Asian Association, received the award on behalf of the Centre France-Asie. Aurillac said the award marks recognition of the Centre France-Asie's efforts to serve Asian students. The Catholic group has offered scholarships and boarding services for Asian students, including those from Taiwan, over the past eight decades. Many Taiwan students have been able to receive advanced education in France with the assistance of the center. The center will use the prize money from the award to set up scholarships for Taiwan students to study in France.
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