■ Health
Chen calls for vigilance
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday urged the nation to be vigilant in the battle against SARS to eliminate the epidemic from Taiwan. "The World Health Organization removed Taiwan from its travel advisory on Tuesday. The news brought us consolation and inspiration. But there is a long way to go before we are removed from the SARS-affected area list, so we must heighten our vigilance," Chen said on TV. Chen said that since Taiwan is not a WHO member and receives little outside help, "when a crisis happens, we must rely on ourselves and stay united."
■ Military
Plane wreckage located
Search teams located a piece of the wreckage of a military training jet that disappeared in southern Taiwan 10 days ago, but its two crew members were still missing, the air force said yesterday. Aerial search teams took pictures of the piece of wreckage in the mountains near Taitung in southern Taiwan, air force official Ko Hsi-hsiung said. The pictures showed a white piece of metal with a blue and a red stripe. "We can confirm that that is a piece of the missing plane," Ko said. "So far, there is still no trace of the crew," Ko said. He said the search would continue until they found the two men. An air force pilot and flight student were flying the two-seat AT-3 plane on June 11 when ground contact was lost. Poor weather conditions and low visibility have hampered the search for the plane, which went missing in remote mountains covered by dense forest, air force officials said.
■ Palau
Travel restriction lifted
An official with Palau's Tourism Bureau in Taipei said yesterday that all Taiwanese tourists are now welcome to visit his country, except those who have visited China recently. He said Palau began to prohibit the citizens of Taiwan and all other countries on the World Health Organization's (WHO) travel advisory list from visiting his country in the western Pacific Ocean about one month ago. The ban on Taiwanese tourists has been lifted because WHO has removed Taiwan from the travel advisory list, he added.
■ Czech republic
China withdraws in protest
The People's Republic of China on Friday withdrew its participation from the 10th International Theatre Fair "Quadriennale" in Prague, in protest over the designation of Taiwan's exhibition, reported the Czech news agency CTK. Grounds for the protest was the designation of the stand simply as "Taiwan" and not "Republic of China (Taiwan)," said a Chinese diplomat. The Quadriennale's management spoke of a "misunderstanding," stating that they regretted China's decision. Chinese officials however were not made any promises concerning the designation of exhibits, a spokesman said.
■ South Africa
OCAC official touches down
Chuang Suo-hang (莊碩漢), vice minister of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission arrived in Johannesburg on Friday en route to Bloemfontein to attend a meeting of the Federation of Taiwan Chambers of Commerce in Africa yesterday. Chuang will also attend a meeting marking the founding anniversary of the Lesotho and African branches of the Global Alliance for Democracy and Peace today in Bloemfontein. He is scheduled to deliver speeches on the development of democracy in Taiwan at these meetings.
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