Premier Yu Shyi-kun pledged to accomplish four major tasks -- fostering a national identity, establishing a failsafe security network, building a clean political environment and forging strategic alliances -- in a report Tuesday to the legislative Yuan on the policy of his administration.
Yu reaffirmed the govern-ment's determination to establish a Taiwanese identity on the basis of pluralistic ethnicity by putting emphasis on harmony between national pluralistic ethnic groups.
He also vowed to do everything possible to protect the collective rights and interests of all ethnic groups in Taiwan while safeguarding both civil rights and cultural rights for foreign spouses, including those from China.
With respect to the establishment of a failsafe security network, Yu outlined a government plan to develop criminal investigation know-how and renew all equipment with a view to preventing organized crime.
As for building a clean political environment, Yu reiterated the government's determination to continue to intensify the political donation management system and to set up an anti-corruption mechanism.
He also called on the legislature to speed up screening of several major draft bills on political reforms, including a draft political party law, a draft lobbying law and a draft law governing the disposal of ill-gotten party assets.
Touching on forging strategic alliances, the premier said his administration will seek to sign free trade agreements with other major nations so that the country will not be marginalized in the face of global economic integration, while continuing to upgrade Taiwan's global competitiveness.
In the face of a new cross-Taiwan Strait situation following the March 20 presidential election, the premier pledged that the government will continue to devote itself to stabilizing relations between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and expanding bilateral trade and economic exchanges under the basic principles of "Taiwan first, reciprocity and risk management."
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
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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