■ Diplomacy
No official Malaysian visits
Malaysia, mindful of Singapore's diplomatic rift with Beijing, has instructed all ministers to steer clear of official visits to Taiwan, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said yesterday. He said Kuala Lumpur accepted the Chinese government's demand that countries it had diplomatic ties with adhere to its "one China" policy. "We fully accept the `one China' policy and the Cabinet has instructed that all ministers obey the one-China policy and not visit Taiwan because this can offend the Chinese government," Najib told a news conference. He was speaking after meeting Guo Boxiong (郭伯雄), vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, adding the general had said Beijing wanted its policy supported by all other countries.
PHOTO: YEH CHIH-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
■ Constitution
Women's groups meet Su
Women's rights activists said yesterday that mainstream values of gender equality should be enshrined in a new or amended Constitution. Representatives from women's rights groups made the pitch during a meeting with Presidential Office Secretary-General Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌). The meeting was arranged as part of Su's project to solicit opinion from civic groups on President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) program to revise the Constitution, which was outlined in his May 20 inauguration speech. Claiming that gender equality had become a mainstream value, the groups said the concept should be enshrined in the Constitution. In response to their suggestions, Su said the constitutional revision program is mainly aimed at formulating a "fit, timely and viable" Constitution.
■ Charity
Fan-fan joins charity tour
As a part of the promotion for the 30-Hour Famine, World Vision Taiwan president Tu Ming-han (杜明翰) and a team of volunteers spent eight days traveling in Afghanistan with pop-star Fan Wei-chi (范瑋琪), better known as Fan-fan. "It was like we had stepped out of a time machine and gone back 2000 years, out of the civilized world," Fan-fan said of her Afghan experience. "Seeing those children, some with very slim chances of surviving more than a few days, I found myself questioning the meaning of life," she said. "But it made me feel proud to know that our compassion could reach such a faraway place, and to know that the children were glad to hear we were Taiwanese." Among the facilities the group visited were a World Vision-funded girls' school and a children's hospital.
■ Diplomacy
Korean envoy visits Hsieh
Hwang Yong Shik, South Korea's new representative to Taiwan, paid a visit to Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday, expressing his desire to boost bilateral tourist and cultural exchanges. Despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations between South Korea and Taiwan, Hwang said the two countries have maintained cordial substantive ties. Hwang expressed his gratitude for Hsieh's assistance to Korean expatriates in Kaohsiung, including the establishment of a Korean school. Hsieh expressed the hope that the two countries can resume direct air links soon. Taiwan suspended direct air links with South Korea in 1992. "If direct flight services resume, I'm convinced that bilateral civilian exchanges will increase further," Hsieh said. According to official tallies, Taiwanese made more than 80,000 visits to South Korea in the first four months of this year.
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