■ Diplomacy
Panama ties to stay firm
Panamanian president-elect Martin Torrijos reaffirmed on Tuesday his commitment to maintaining formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Torrijos made the reaffirmation prior to his departure for a European tour that will take him to Spain, Belgium and France. Torrijos will assume the presidency on Sept. 1. He said Panama maintains formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan while keeping commercial ties with China. "I see no possibility that this situation will be changed after I assume office," he told reporters.
■ Government
Cabinet approves spending
The Cabinet yesterday approved a special appropriation of NT$36.5 billion (US$1.08 billion) for the NT$500 billion 10 New Major Construction Projects for the first year of the project. These funds will go toward the construction of the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) systems in Taipei and Kaohsiung and the third wave of freeways across the country. The legislature passed a bill authorizing the projects on the last day of the legislative session, which ended on June 11. The bill allows the Cabinet to circumvent the nation's public debt ceiling and to make a special budget of up to NT$500 billion for the projects over the next five years.
■ Crime
Gun control may get tighter
Cabinet yesterday approved tightening gun-control regulations following a police shootout with suspected kidnappers in Taichung last month that left two police officers dead. The draft amendments to the Statute Regulating Firearms, Ammunition, Knives and Other Deadly Weapons (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例) will proceed to the legislature for further review. Under the draft, penalties for those possessing homemade or remodeled firearms, including replica guns, would increase. Unauth-orized persons selling or leasing firearms or remade firearms would be subject to a jail term of at least five years and a fine of up to NT$10 million.
■ Crime
Japan returns `smugglers'
Three crew members aboard a Taiwanese fishing boat suspected of drug trafficking in waters near Japan were sent to Taiwan early yesterday for questioning, coast guard officials said. Japanese maritime authorities notified Taiwan's coast guard office in Suao at noon Tuesday that they were detaining a fishing boat from Juifang suspected of drug trafficking. The Suao coast guard office immediately sent a cutter to waters near Japan to escort the Hsintsaifa No. 2 back to Taiwan. Coast guard officials said their Japanese counterparts began to chase the fishing boat away Tuesday morning when it seemed to be on the verge of entering Japanese waters.
■ Cross-Strait Ties
Crash relatives in China
Family members of tourists killed or injured in a bus crash in Jinlin Province on Tuesday left for China yesterday to handle matters related to the accident. A Taiwanese woman, identified as Wang Shu-chen (王淑珍), was killed in the crash at a Changbaishan mountain resort, while 10 others were injured. The injured are receiving treatment at a hospital in Antu City. The Penghau Travel Agency had organized the 10-day tour that left Taipei last Friday and was scheduled to return on Sunday. Reports from China said the bus' brakes failed and it crashed into a ditch after hitting a bridge.
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