■ Diplomacy
Birthday party sparks row
China has complained to Japan over a meeting between Taiwanese and Japanese officials at a reception in Taipei, the foreign ministry said yesterday. "We express our strong dissatisfaction over Japan's refusal to listen to the many representations by the Chinese side and Japan's insistence to invite Taiwanese authorities to the [Japanese] emperor's birthday reception in Taipei," the foreign ministry said in a statement on its website. Taiwan's Foreign Minister Eugene Chien (簡又新) and presidential secretary Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) attended the reception on Thursday in Taipei. "The Taiwan issue is a question of Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Chinese side opposes any country engaging in relations of any kind with Taiwanese officials or holding formal exchanges," the statement said. "We ask the Japanese side to eliminate the bad influence of this and make certain that similar incidents do not occur again," it said.
■ Weather
Mercury could drop further
Seasonal northeast winds has brought dry and cold weather to Taiwan with temperatures in Tamsui and Chiayi dropping to 9.8 degrees Celsius early yesterday morning, a record low so far this year. A meteorologist from the Central Weather Bureau said temperatures in other parts of the island also dropped to this year's new low. Early yesterday morning temperatures dropped to 12.7 degrees Celsius in Taipei early yesterday morning, 11.8 degrees Celsius in Taichung, 12.3 degrees Celsius in Tainan and 14.6 degrees Celsius in Kaohsiung. It warmed up to 19 degrees Celsius in northern Taiwan and 23 degrees Celsius in central and southern Taiwan yesterday. The weather bureau said the weather is expected to turn even colder tomorrow.
■ Security
Anti-terror bill discussed
The Judiciary Committee of the Legislative Yuan will discuss an anti-terrorism draft bill today under which convicted terrorists could face capital punishment. The draft bill, aimed at underscoring the country's determination to wipe out terrorism and to bring itself in line with other civilized nations in terms of cracking down on terrorism, will empower the Executive Yuan to set up an anti-terrorism panel, while the National Security Bureau should coordinate the efforts of different government agencies in collecting information on terrorist organizations and their activities. Any person convicted of committing a terrorist act will face punishment ranging from 10 years imprisonment to death.
■ Politics
DPP dismisses PFP proposal
The People First Party's (PFP) proposal to limit the power of the Cabinet is so absurd that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will not even dignify it with a response, DPP legislative whip Chen Chih-mai (陳其邁) said yesterday. Asked to comment on a PFP-initiated proposal which would prohibit a caretaker Cabinet to set major policies or make what could be construed as politically motivated appointments six months before a presidential election, the DPP lawmaker said such a move would be unconstitutional. He said it is not difficult to find 15 sponsors and start a proposal at the Legislative Yuan, but it is another thing to translate it into legislation. The PFP lawmakers who floated the idea yesterday are simply trying to get media attention, Chen said. Lee Chia-jin (李嘉進), secretary of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) legislative caucus said his party would support the proposal in principle to prevent the ruling party from winning over voters.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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