■ Cross-strait ties
Zhangzhou group in Kinmen
Zhangzhou Vice Mayor Tang Peigeng (譚培根) from Xiamen, Fujian Province, led a six-member delegation to Kinmen yesterday to promote bilateral exchanges and cooperation. Tang's was the first trade group from Zhangzhou to visit Kinmen since the "small three links," were implemented in January 2001. Kinmen County Magistrate Lee Chu-feng (李炷烽) said that Kinmen and Zhangzhou are close to each other. Lee said Zhangzhou has an ample supply of agricultural products and construction materials and that there should be room for cooperation between the two sides such as in tourism and the processing of light industrial products. With a lot of Taiwanese winery owners trying to register their products as Kinmen Kaoliang liquor in Zhangzhou, Lee expressed his appreciation that Zhangzhou authorities helped revoke their registrations. Lee also welcomed Zhangzhou to sponsor trade fairs in Kinmen.
■ Foreign wives
Ministry to boost protection
Vice Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) said yesterday the ministry will step up protection of foreign wives of Taiwanese. Chien made the remarks when he attended a public hearing, sponsored by KMT Legislator Chiang Chi-wen (江綺雯), to highlight the problems faced by foreign wives. Several social groups, including the Pearl Buck Foundation and the YWCA, also took part. Chien said that the ministry had worked out a policy to provide counselling to foreign wives and set up a "one-stop" service center to step up protection of abused foreign wives. In addition, he said that from next year, the ministry will increase the budget to help foreign wives by 85 percent in the hopes of increasing the level of care for them.
■ Water
Rains ease shortage
Water Resources Agency Deputy Director Chen Shen-hsien (陳伸賢) said yesterday that the first-stage of a series of water restrictions for northern Taiwan may be lifted in the middle of next month, thanks to recent precipitation. Chen said the Feitsui Reservoir in Taipei County and the Shihmen Reservoir in Taoyuan County have accumulated 120mm and 130mm of rainfall, respectively, since the beginning of this month. Should the accumulations at the two dams reach 180mm by the end of the month, a second-phase of water-conservation measures originally planned for the north early next month may not go ahead. The first-stage of measures could be removed by the middle of next month if rainfall remains normal early next month, Chen said.
■ 2004 election
Youth backs opposition
Most young people would support opposition candidates over President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in next year's presidential election, according to a poll released yesterday. The poll by the TVBS cable news station surveyed people aged between 19 and 22, who would be able to vote for the first time in next year's ballot. The voting age is 20. The poll showed that 57 percent of respondents supported KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and his probably running mate, PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜). Thirty-seven percent would vote for Chen if he sought re-election with Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮). Seventeen percent said they would not vote. TVBS said 600 people took part in the telephone survey, conducted from April 7 to Monday. The poll had a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.
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