■ Cross-strait ties
China makes threat
China's Communist Party daily cautioned Taiwan's leaders yesterday against holding a referendum on independence. Taiwanese authorities "would draw fire against themselves if they cling obstinately to the course" of holding a referendum on the nation's political future and status, said a commentary in the People's Daily. The planned move by the DPP would only aggravate tension between Beijing and Taipei, said the commentary, entitled "Why is it difficult to break the deadlock between the two sides?" The papery also accused President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of "intentionally widening political differences between the two sides and creating new obstacles." It blamed Chen for shutting the door to dialogue, which it said was the "basic crux of the stalemate."
■ Foreign relations
Dollar diplomacy ruled out
Taiwan will not engage in "checkbook diplomacy," Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (簡又新) said in San Francisco on Wednesday. Chien, heading a five-member delegation, made the remarks while making a transit stop in San Francisco on his way to the Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to attend an annual meeting of foreign ministers from Taiwan and its four East Caribbean diplomatic allies. Commenting on recent media reports that the Pacific island nation of Nauru is about to cut its diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China in preparation for re-establishing relations with Taiwan, Chien said national interests have been the government's top concern in developing foreign relations. "We are more than willing to boost exchanges and cooperation with other countries based on the principles of equality and reciprocity, but we'll not embark on dollar diplomacy," Chien said.
■ Medicine
UK delegation to visit
Trade Partners UK (TPUK), the UK's government trade development and investment promotion organization, is slated to lead a British medical association mission to Taipei on Monday for a three-day visit, the British Trade and Cultural Office (BTCO) said yesterday. "The purpose of this visit is to gauge specific ongoing prospects for the industry in a post Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome [SARS] environment," the BTCO said in a press release. The mission is composed of TPUK official Nick Stephens and Bradley Barnes from Medilink Ltd, a membership-based professional association in the Yorkshire and Humber region of the UK, the BTCO said. The delegates will visit public and private organizations in order to help them "understand the difference in behavioral patterns following SARS," the BTCO said. Medilink Ltd, a gateway for
■ Passports
Change seen as functional
The new version of the ROC passport is mainly for functional purposes, a senior official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Yang Sheng-chung (楊勝宗), director of the ministry's Bureau of Consular Affairs, made the remarks while briefing staff members of various airlines and immigration officers at the CKS Airport on the reasons behind the decision to issue a new version of the passport. Yang said the only difference in the new version is the addition of the word "Taiwan" in Roman script to the cover to enable foreign immigration officers to more easily understand where the passport holder hails from.
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