The world is recognizing the nation's fight against drugs, best illustrated by Taiwan's absence from the US government's list of drug transshipment countries for the fourth consecutive year, President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen was presenting awards to outstanding individuals and organizations for their contribution to last year's anti-drug campaign during a ceremony yesterday morning at the Presidential Office.
Chen made particular mention of Chiang Chin-hui (
Chen said that Chiang had not even reached the prime of his life. This was not only a great loss to the police, Chen said, but also to Chiang's Atayal Aboriginal community and especially to the fight against drugs and the effort to arrest drug offenders. He expressed his and the government's deepest condolences to Chiang's family.
"The work targeting drugs is now in its 12th year since the government announced a war on drugs in May 1993," Chen said.
"In March this year, the US Congress, in its 2003 report on international drug control, left Taiwan off its list of drug exporting countries for the fourth consecutive year, demonstrating the international community's affirmation of Taiwan's anti-drugs effort," he said.
But Chen called on the nation to place greater stress on the importance of combating drugs, adding that civic society needed to be more actively involved in anti-drug work.
"Government resources are limited, but the public have power in their own right," he said.
Chen added that the government and the public should work together to create a "drug-free, clear and bright new century."
Chen said that arresting drug traffickers was certainly important.
But he also said that a reduction in the demand for drugs and the number of people taking them could only occur if individuals, families, schools, local communities and officials united to resist drug use.
He said the war on drugs was difficult and long-term.
"In the last year, reoffenders and multiple offenders have increased in number. The drug trade is becoming ever more complex, with new drugs proliferating," he said.
"The war against drugs, therefore, is facing new challenges," he said.
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