■ UN Membership
Paper supports UN entry
The Miami Herald carried an article on Friday, saying that the UN should accept Taiwan as a member. The article, titled "Taiwan belongs to the United Nations," says that the UN must uphold the principle of universality stipulated in its constitution and invite Taiwan to join it as a member. It points out that Taiwan is a free and peace-loving state and that its democratic government is the only legitimate government able to represent the interests of Taiwan's people in the UN Taiwan's exclusion from the UN constitutes discrimination against the Taiwanese, depriving them of their right to benefit from and contribute to the work of the world body. Given Taiwan's strategic location in the Asia-Pacific region, UN representation also would allow Taiwan to play a crucial role in maintaining enduring peace and security in the region and the world, it added.
■ Politics
Pinglin holds own plebicite
Pinglin, a little-known rural township in Taipei County, beat the president to the punch by holding a referendum yesterday. About 5,000 Pinglin residents voted in a referendum to request that the central government open to the public a proposed service ramp linking Pinglin and the Peiyi Freeway. In the referendum, an overwhelming majority of the voters said the service ramp designed for the exclusive use of highway workers and Pinglin residents should be opened to ordinary passengers traveling on the Peiyi Freeway to boost tourism of the small mountain township. The Peiyi Freeway linking Taipei and Ilan through Pinglin is expected to be completed by 2005.
■ Environment
Taipei to close roads
The Taipei City Government is inviting residents to jog, roller skate or bike down part of Renai and Xinyi roads usually reserved for vehicles Sept. 21 as part of its annual environmentally friendly activities Sept. 19 to Sept. 23. In tune with an international car-free day, the Taipei City Government will block traffic on Renai and Xinyi roads between 8:30am and 9:30am Sept. 21 so that residents can bike, roller skate, jog or even take a leisure walk to savor two of the most beautiful boulevards in downtown Taipei. City government officials said that roller skaters and joggers are invited to start from the square in front of the city government building, move along Renai Road to the south "chingfu" gate before returning and continuing along Xinyi Road to experience a quieter and more leisurely paced Taipei.
■ Business
Chen reaffirms promises
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) reaffirmed yesterday he will deliver on his promises he has made to the people of Taichung. The president made the remarks when he met with the heads of listed and over-the-counter companies during lunch in central Taiwan, according to Ou Cheng-ming (歐正明), president of the Taichung Industrial Park Manufacturers' Association. On the "three the third" issue that Taichung residents are concerned with, the president said the building of a third science-based industrial park and the third international airport in Taichung as well as making Taichung the third municipality are all underway. He also proposed that Taichung Harbor become a free-trade harbor and that it work with the Changpin Industrial Park to become the prime mover of the development of central Taiwan.
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