■ Public safety
Ma ups security in Taipei
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday ordered stepped-up security protec-tion for foreign nationals living in the city after the US-led war against Iraq got underway. The Taipei City Government has beefed up protection measures for members of the expatriate community and it will continue to provide any kind of assistance that foreign nationals may need, Ma said.
He added that the city government is also closely watching developments in the international situation and will cooperate with the central government to maintain the stability of daily commodity and related product prices. Ma said the city government had rein-forced security protection for foreign nationals after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the US, with the stepped-up measures focusing on the community of US citizens and the Taipei American School (TAS). For example, he said, the city has kept the space and driveways in front of the TAS empty in a bid to prevent car-bomb attacks. Ma noted that people from more than 100 countries live in Taipei, but citizens of the US, the UK and the Middle East are receiving relatively greater attention from the city government.
■ Travel
Business as usual for visas
US visa applications are proceeding as usual and are not affected by the US strike on Iraq, sources at the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday. As of Monday AIT began accepting appointments for visa applications in advance by telephone. Visa interviews went as scheduled yesterday, the sources said. The sources said that if there are any changes in visa applica-tions, a notice will be posted on AIT's Web site (www.ait.
org.tw) and the news media will be alerted immediately.
■ Legislature
DPP caucus backs aid to Iraq
The DPP caucus in the Legislative Yuan will support the administration's stance of providing Iraq with post-war reconstruction funds, DPP Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳奇邁) said yesterday. Chen, the DPP legislative whip, while noting that it is "regrettable" that the US-led war against Iraq could not be avoided through diplomacy, said the DPP legislative caucus will support the government's stance. Chen noted that the US is a major trading partner and has long been a friend to this country. He said the govern-ment supports the US actions against terrorism and the upholding of international order, adding that this is in the interests of both nations. Chen said that terrorist activities not only endanger US national security, but also affect global trade activities.
■ Cross-strait ties
MAC appeals to China
The Mainland Affairs Council asked Beijing yes-terday to cooperate with Taipei in maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. The council made the appeal after the US attacked Iraq. The council said in a news release that the government had continued taking concrete steps over the past two-and-a-half years to improve cross-strait relations. "We hope Chinese authorities can recognize our goodwill efforts and make a positive response," the statement said. The council said it wanted to renew its call to Beijing to work with Taiwan in keeping cross-strait harmony and stability to create a favorable environment for sustainable economic development and social stability on both sides of the Strait.
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