■ Passports
Beijing throws tantrum
China yesterday slammed the issuance of new passports by Taiwan and said it was "resolutely opposed" to the placing of the word "Taiwan" on the cover of the document. "To stamp Taiwan on the passport is a way or move to express gradual Taiwan independence and this is a move we are resolutely opposed to," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan (孔泉) said. "This practice cannot be accepted by us." The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the new passports on Monday.
■ Identity
KMT opposes Taiwan drive
KMT caucus leaders expressed their opposition yesterday to the "call Taiwan Taiwan" movement, saying the movement is aimed at changing the official name of the country and eliminating the Republic of China. The Alliance to Campaign for Rectifying the Name of Taiwan, the TSU and other organizations are planning to sponsor a parade in downtown Taipei to highlight the movement this Saturday. The KMT caucus held a news conference yesterday to express its opposition to the movement. Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進), a KMT caucus leader, said the DPP is secretly promoting the movement in collaboration with the TSU. Members of the DPP and TSU live in the territory of the Republic of China, but do not recognize their Republic of China citizenship, he said. KMT Legislator Li Chuan-chiao (李全教) said the DPP's secret support of the movement is against the world trend of democracy.
■ Diplomacy
AIT gets new deputy director
David Keegan assumed office as deputy director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) yesterday. Keegan succeeds Pamela Slutz, who had been AIT's No. 2 person since September 2001. Slutz left for Washington before she takes up her new post as the US ambassador to Mongolia. Keegan, a historian trained at Columbia University, worked in the office of Taiwan coordination, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, of the US Department of State. Keegan joined the Foreign Service in 1982 and had previously served abroad in Jamaica, South Korea, Guangzhou and Singapore.
■ Hakka affairs
Exhibition begins today
The Council for Hakka Affairs is holding the 2003 Hakka Women Life Images Exhibition from today to Oct. 5. The exhibition will include displays of painting, carving, stained glass, decorations and pottery by Hakka female artists. There will also be a section showing Hakka female artifacts such as underwear, embroidery, traditional wedding carriages, and powder boxes. There will also be do-it-yourself activities such as making Hakka dolls, cloth carving and stained glass. The exhibition is on the 7th floor of the Shinkong Mitsukoshi Department Store in the Hsinyi district from today to Sept. 14, and will be on the 12th floor of the Kaohsiung Sogo Department Store from Sept. 25 to Oct. 5.
■ Trade
Accord before legislature
The new chief of Panama's National Assembly, Jacobo Salas, asked the legislative body on Monday to approve a free-trade accord signed with Taiwan 10 days ago. Salas, a longtime member of the ruling Arnulfista Party, was chosen to be the last congressional speaker under President Mireya Moscoso. Salas called for quick approval of the free-trade agreement with Taiwan signed on Aug. 21 during a Taiwan-Central America summit in Taipei.
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