■ Diplomacy
Paraguay affirms aid uses
Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte Fruto said that Taiwan's financial aid to his country has been properly used, according to a recent Paraguayan media report. He made the remarks in a bid to counter the opposition's doubts that the use of the money has not been transparent, the report said. Duarte was speaking at a ceremony marking the inauguration of a residential community earlier this week in Asuncion, which he said was built with US$5 million -- the first part of an economic aid package worth US$29 million from Taipei. Duarte explained that the US$5 million was channeled into Paraguay's central bank and that the completion of the 86 houses is evidence that the donation has been used appropriately. Part of the money was also used in cultural and education affairs to help wipe out illiteracy, he noted. Ambassador Yen Ping-fan (顏秉璠) also attended the ceremony.
■ Society
Hakka culture promoted
The government is promoting Hakka culture with an aim of building Taiwan into a world Hakka culture center, Vice Premier Yeh Chu-lan (葉菊蘭) said yesterday. Addressing a workshop on Hakka culture in Hsinchu, Yeh said that President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) administration has been actively promoting the Hakka culture since it came to power in 2000. Its concrete results include the establishment of the Cabinet-level Hakka Affairs Council and Hakka TV, as well as bringing the Hakka language back into the public arena, making the Hakka people proud of their own culture and revitalizing Hakka villages, Yeh said. Hakka TV programs have also contributed to the increase in the number of people who speak Hakka, she said. Yeh said she hoped that the promotion of Hakka culture will make the Hakka people become a happy and confident ethnic group.
■ diplomacy
Nicaraguan leaders to visit
Nicaraguan Interior Minister Julio Cesar Vega Pasquier and the Central American country's presidential aide, Avil Antonio Ramirez Valdivia, are set to arrive in Taipei on Monday for a five-day visit, according to a news release issued yesterday by the Foreign Affairs Ministry. During the visit, Vega is scheduled to meet with Vice Foreign Affairs Minister Ouyang Jui-hsiung (歐楊瑞雄), Police Administration Director-General Hsieh Yin-tang (謝銀黨), Immigration Bureau Commissioner Tseng Wen-chang (曾文昌) and Interior Minister Su Jia-Chyuan (蘇嘉全). Vega will confer a medal on Su, while Ouyang will bestow "the Order of the Brilliant Star" on Vega. Vega and Pasquier will also receive a briefing at the Government Information Office. They are slated to leave Taiwan on July 30.
■ Diplomacy
French lawmaker to visit
French National Assembly member Alain Madelin is set to visit Taipei tomorrow through Wednesday, according the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Alain's visit is aimed at learning more about Taiwan's current economic development. He is scheduled to pay a visit to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). He will also meet with Legislative Yuan Deputy Speaker Chiang Ping-kun (江丙坤), Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山), Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (林全), National Science Council Chairman Wu Mao-kun (吳茂昆), Atomic Energy Council Chairman Ouyang Ming-sheng (歐楊敏盛), and EVA Group vice president Chang Kuo-cheng (張國城).
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