US Senate majority leader Bill Frist arrived in Taiwan yesterday for a whirlwind 24-hour visit, saying one reason for his visit to Taipei was to convey American appreciation for Taiwan's support for the US-led war on Iraq.
"Part of the purpose of our visit is to convey our gratitude to the people of Taiwan for their support of the international coalition's effort to free the Iraqi people," Frist said upon his arrival.
The Republican senator arrived in Taipei yesterday morning as head of an eight-member bipartisan American senate delegation.
Taiwan's Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (簡又新) and de facto US ambassador to Taiwan Douglas Paal greeted the delegation at Taipei's Sungshan Airport onboard a US Air Force plane yesterday.
Frist is the first Senate majority leader to visit Taiwan since Bob Dole's trip in 1985.
Frist said the delegation's visit will be colored with discussions of "a number of economic, security and health issues that affect both the US and Taiwan.
"We believe Taiwan has much to offer to the world. We look forward to meeting with our Taiwanese hosts and continuing a constructive exchange of views on issues of mutual concern," Frist said. "We are here to listen and to learn. We are here to celebrate your democracy and our long friendship."
The other delegates in the group of heavyweight politicians include Senate Budget Committee Chairman Don Nickles and senators Susan Collins, Conrad Burns, Lincoln Chafee, Ben Nelson, Bill Nelson and Mark Dayton.
In the afternoon, the delegation went to the Taipei office of the American Institute in Taiwan for a briefing before meeting with Mainland Affairs Council Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Defense Minister Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明).
They then visited Legislative Speaker Yuan Wang Jin-ping (王金平)
In the evening, President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen expressed his thanks for US support of Taiwan's efforts to join the World Health Organization. He also reiterated Taiwan's resolve to support the US anti-terrorism campaign and help in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.
The delegation was to leave for Beijing today before wrapping up their trip that has also taken them to Japan and South Korea.
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