■ Diplomacy
Panama works on FTA
Panama and Taiwan agreed here Saturday on key areas of a draft free trade agreement, an official said.Panama Trade Minister Meliton Arrocha and Taiwan vice economics minister Chen Ruey-long led talks on customs procedures, investment protection and rules on identifying the origin of goods. It was the third round of discussions. A fourth round of talks is to be held May 18 in Taipei to discuss market access and a list of products to be covered by the agreement. Panama is the only country in talks with Taiwan for a bilateral free-trade pact. The two sides held the first and second rounds of talks in October last year and this January, hoping an accord could be signed by the end of this year.
■ Media
US paper supports WHO bid
A major US newspaper called on China to recognize the threat of contagious diseases and stop blocking Taiwan's bid to join the WHO. In an editorial headlined "China Needs to Recognize Global Health Threat" in its Saturday issue, the Houston Chronicle said China has attempted to hide the truth about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak, which is suspected to have originated from Guangdong Province. The article also said that China needs to stop opposing Taiwan's bid to enter the international organization, citing that Taiwan's exclusion from the global healthcare network poses a threat to the health of the entire world. With a circulation of over 550,000, the Houston Chronicle is the sixth largest newspaper in the US and the largest in the southern US.
■ Transportation
Tainan airport shut for a day
Tainan's airport was closed for all of Saturday after a TransAsia Airways plane hit an engineering truck on Friday night. The accident occurred on the runway while the plane was attempting to land. None of the plane's 100-plus passengers was injured, but the plane's fuselage was seriously damaged. The airport's flight schedules were normal yesterday except for the first flight, which was slightly delayed. TransAsia officials said the airport's control tower had cleared the plane for landing, adding that they do not rule out seeking compensation from the airport's authorities. The company's Tainan flight schedules will remain unchanged, the officials said.
■ Resources
Firms compete for contract
At least three local companies are competing for a natural gas supply contract worth NT$400 billion (US$11.52 billion) to be offered by the state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), it was reported yesterday. All interested bidders are required to tender their bids by today on Taipower's Tatan Project, which is aiming to build a thermal power plant in Taoyuan County with 4,000 megawatts of capacity, a local Chinese-language newspaper said. Among the three competitors is the state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp. The winner will be required to supply 1.68 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas for 25 years, beginning from 2009. Separately, Taipower is inviting Alstom, Mitsubishi, Siemens and General Electric to bid for the supply of the power plant's equipment. With eight generators, the power plant is estimated to cost Taipower around NT$80 billion.
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