■ Business
Ban on steel exports urged
The government should follow the example of South Korea and impose an interim ban on steel exports to meet surging demand at home, a lawmaker said yesterday. Legislator Wei Ming-ku (魏明谷) of the Democratic Progressive Party, saying that price hikes have pushed some wholesalers to stockpile their products, added that many downstream companies have complained about the loss of business opportunities arising from a booming housing market. Many companies are afraid to take new orders because rising steel prices have shown no sign of slowing down since China Steel -- the largest steel producer in the country -- announced it would raise prices on Feb. 26. Wei called on the government to come up with a solution quickly.
■ Election
New labor policy sought
Several labor groups said yesterday that they will make a public appeal to candidates in the presidential race to create a better labor policy. Wang Wei-jen (王為仁), president of the Alliance of Taiwan Unemployed Workers, said yesterday that he and leaders of several other labor groups will make a public appeal in front of the Presidential Office and the Legislative Yuan from March 15 to March 17 to press President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Chinese Nationalist Party Chairman (KMT) Lien Chan (連戰) for a better labor policy. Noting that some labor groups have called for their members to boycott the March 20 election to show their displeasure with both candidates, Wang said that people, especially those who are out of work, will be ignored if they don't take part in the election.
■ Diplomacy
MOFA denies ASEAN report
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday dismissed as untrue reports by a Chinese state television that ASEAN is opposed to Taiwan's planned referendum, which will be held at the same time as the March 20 presidential election. Ministry officials said that China Central Television's reports "are not true," adding that Beijing has exaggerated the personal views of Indonesian Foreign Minister Noer Hasan Wirajuda. "This is the consistent way of China to restrict Taiwan's democracy and its maneuvering space in the international community, and yet another attempt to mislead international views," the officials said.
■ Women
Lu celebrates Women's Day
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) will launch a series of activities to mark the 33rd anniversary of Women's Day tomorrow. Lu published an article on the review of the traditional relations of both genders in 1971 to usher in the new feminism in Taiwan. Lu is expected to board a train at Kaohsiung Railway Station at 9:55am today to travel northbound. She will change trains at Taichung at 12:50pm and continue the trip to Taipei where she will lead tens of thousands of women on a march. A special women's night will be held at the spacious square in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall today to highlight the past, present and future of Taiwanese women. Lu said that during the event, she will talk with Chen Chu (陳菊), chairman of the Council of Labor Affairs, and former Taichung Mayor Chang Wen-ying (張溫鷹), about being jailed over the Formosa Incident which took place on Dec. 10, 1979, in Kaohsiung, where those who advocated the establishment of an opposition party in the magazine Formosa and their supporters clashed with police in an unauthorized rally.
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