■ Administration
Westernized writing adopted
The Presidential Office announced yesterday that it started adopting a Westernized writing format for government documents in accordance with a law which will come into effect on Jan. 1. The amended Decree Governing the Writing of Official Documents (公文程序條例), which was approved by the legislature in May, requires the writing on official documents to run from left to right. Prior to the legal revision, government documents -- except for charts, graphics and statistical reports -- ran from right to left and from top to bottom. The Cabinet approved the amendment on June 14.
■ Diplomacy
Wu Ruey-kuo says no to MAC
Wu Ruey-kuo (吳瑞國), a former director of the department of international affairs of the People First Party (PFP), has declined an offer to serve as the vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council for family reasons, council Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. The former PFP official had been recommended by the Democratic Progressive Party and Joseph Wu had contacted him several times over the past month to inquire about his willingness to take the job. Wu Ruey-kuo had been offered the post because of the desire to strike a balance between various parties, his legal expertise and language ability and his good relations with think tanks in the US, Joseph Wu said. He added that Wu Ruey-kuo would have had a positive impact on the country's communication with the US on Taiwan's China policy. There is presently no other candidate under consideration for the post, Joseph Wu said.
■ Diplomacy
Taiwan gets to use name
Taiwan has been admitted to the "24/7 Computer Crime Network," an affiliate of the G8, dedicated to cracking down on computerized criminal activities, government sources said Sunday. The entry to the G8-affiliated anti-computer crime network marks yet another step forward in the government's efforts to join major international organizations and conferences, Ministry of Justice officials said. According to the officials, Taiwan was admitted to the G8 Computer Crime Network under the name "Taiwan" and was allowed to use Taiwan's national flag at its first general congress held in Rome in March this year. Taiwan is the network's 35th member country. The network's members include the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Australia, Brazil, Finland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. China is not a member.
■ Diplomacy
Salvadoran president to visit
Salvadoran President Antonio Saca and his wife will visit Taipei later this month to attend the second Democratic Pacific Assembly, as well as to discuss plans to boost bilateral cooperation, according to Taipei County officials. The officials said yesterday that Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) had invited Saca to visit the country when she visited El Salvador in June. Lu had been commissioned by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to head a delegation to El Salvador to attend Saca's inauguration. The officials said that Chen is expected to host a state banquet in honor of Saca and his wife next Wednesday. This will be Saca's first visit to the country since he assumed office.
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