■Transportation
Rapid-transit lines planned
The government plans to build five more rapid mass-transit lines, a Chinese-language newspaper said yesterday. According to the paper, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications plans to budget NT$300 billion (US$8.8 billion) for the five lines along a high-speed railway. The five lines will be built in Hsinchu, Tainan and Taipei counties, will link CKS International Airport with Taipei City and will extend the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit Line to Pingtung County. The paper did not say when construction of the five lines would begin, but the north-south high-speed railway is to start operating in 2005.
■ Legislative Yuan
DPP sets its priorities
It is urgent for the legislature to ratify the draft bills on economic and financial reform, while a referendum law can be postponed until the next legislative session which begins in September, Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), DPP legislative caucus whip, said yesterday. While the KMT and PFP caucuses have secured the signatures of 69 lawmakers to hold an extra session in July to discuss the referendum law, the DPP is struggling to initiate an extra session for the ratification of six draft bills on economic and financial reform. An extra session may be held either upon the request of the president or upon a joint proposal by at least one-fourth of all legislators.
■ Cross-strait ties
Chang pushes cargo flights
Taiwan's opposition parties said yesterday they would join forces to push for the cross-Taiwan Strait chartered cargo flights, banned under the no-direct-contact policy toward China. "We plan to get the necessary support in the legislature for our plan to launch the cross-strait cargo flights in October," said KMT Legislator John Chang (章孝嚴). Chang, who yesterday obtained support from his party and the PFP for the proposal, said under his plan the chartered cargo flight would not stop at a third port, but the cargo planes would merely fly through the zone of a third country before reaching their destinations, he said. Chang said flying through a third area should skirt the government ban on no direct flights, and save time and money for the operators.
■ Travel
Denmark eyes visa change
Denmark wants to press the EU to change its visa policy for Taiwan to allow President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and other officials to visit Europe privately, Danish daily Berlingske Tidende reported yesterday. Danish visa regulations were introduced for Taiwan in 1988 because the EU does not recognize it as an independent state. As a result, officials are unable to visit Europe, either for political or private visits. Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told Berlingske Tidende that he wanted to press the EU to change the regulation because things have changed between China and Taiwan since 1988.
■ Kaohsiung
Hsieh off to US
Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) was scheduled to leave for New York and Baltimore yesterday afternoon for a brief visit. An official of the Kaohsiung government said Hsieh will study the city-development projects of the two American harbor cities during the visit, because he wants to build Kaohsiung into a modern harbor city. Hsieh is particularly interested in the development of Baltimore's Inner City, which was developed into a major tourist attraction in the 1970s. Hsieh is scheduled to return home on July 8.
Agencies
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