■ 'One China' policy
US position unchanged
The US "one China" policy, which includes not supporting Taiwan independence, has not changed, a senior US administration official said Sunday. The official told media in Washington that US President George W. Bush reiterated the "one China" policy during a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) Saturday ahead of the APEC leaders summit being held yesterday and today in Bangkok. "The president reiterated our `one China' policy, noting that it has not changed, that we have a `one China' policy that is based on the three communiques, the Taiwan Relations Act and the fact that we don't support Taiwan moving toward independence," the official said. The official made the remarks in response to a reporter's question about how the Hu-Bush discussion about Taiwan came up. Hu told the media in Bangkok after the meeting with Bush that "President Bush expressed opposition to Taiwan independence in the meeting."
■ Politics
Lien visits Washington
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) arrived in Washington Sunday afternoon from Boston by train for a four-day visit. While in Washington, Lien will participate in activities sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and other organizations. Lien will also meet with overseas Chinese leaders from the greater Washington area.
■ Education
Ma urges cooperation
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) urged Southeast Asian universities to step up cooperation with universities in Taiwan, when he received more than 30 Asian university presidents in his office yesterday. Ma told the educators, who are here to attend the 2003 Southeast Asian University Presidents' Conference, that it is necessary for the universities to improve their cooperation at a time when economic integration is accelerating in Asia. More than 100 university presidents from eight other countries and Taiwan are attending the two-day conference.
■ Development
Offshore islands key
The Ministry of the Interior's South China Sea Committee held its seventh meeting yesterday to discuss the management and developments of the nation's offshore islands and territorial waters, including disputed areas in the South China Sea. The committee will formulate preliminary plans within a month and then report to the Executive Yuan. Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) visited the Spratly Islands on Aug. 16 and found the position of the islands important. Yu said he felt the responsibility of managing the islands is an enormous task.
■ Transportation
CAL serves hot food again
Taiwan's largest air carrier said yesterday it is resuming the supply of hot meals on Taipei-Hong Kong flights after they had been suspended due to SARS. China Airlines (CAL) said the hot-meal service was scheduled to be restored on the route on Nov. 1. The air carrier suspended the service as a precaution against SARS. Passengers had stopped eating the meals because they did not want to take off their masks during flights. Instead, the airline offered cold meals that passengers could take with them when they got off the plane. Currently CAL operates 16 round trip flights each day to Hong Kong from Taipei and Kaohsiung.
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