■ Diplomacy
Chad denies switch threat
Chad Ambassador Hissein Brahim Taha yesterday denied reports that his country threatened to switch recognition to Beijing if it failed to secure a multi-million dollar aid package from Taipei. "The Chad government has never asked for NT$350 million [US$10.36 million] in aid from Taiwan," he said. "Chad has very strong relations with Taiwan and we are very sad to see this allegation." A Chinese-language newspaper reported on Tuesday that the government was pressured into offering the aid package to stop Chad from severing ties. The paper said Chad has been in frequent contact with China in the past year. Chad has formal relations with Taiwan.
■ Diplomacy
HK welcomes official
The Hong Kong government welcomes Pao Cheng- kang (鮑正鋼), Taiwan's new representative to Hong Kong, to assume his post, a spokesman for the Constitutional Affairs Bureau said yesterday. The spokesman said the Hong Kong government had consistently adopted a positive attitude toward Pao's application for a working visa. "We welcome Pao to assume his post as managing director of the Chung Hwa Travel Service in Hong Kong," he said. Taiwan's representative office in Hong Kong is designated as Chung Hwa Travel Service because Hong Kong doesn't have official ties with Taiwan owing to Beijing's "one China" principle. Asked whether bureau director Stephen Lam (林瑞麟) would meet Pao after he took office, the spokesman said the bureau had traditionally maintained communication channels with the Chung Hwa Travel Service. Lam had met with Pao's predecessor, Chang Liang-jen (張良任), from time to time to exchange views. Taiwan confirmed on Tuesday that Pao had received a visa.
■ Diplomacy
WMA OKs name change
The World Medical Association (WMA) approved of changing the name of its Taiwan branch from the Chinese Medical Association Taipei to the Taiwan Medical Association (TMA) during its assembly in Tokyo that took place from Oct. 5 to Oct. 9, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced yesterday. "The name rectification will help Taiwan officially start its medical diplomacy in the international community. The association can avoid the embarrassment of being mistakenly regarded as a provincial organization, which it faced when it used its old name," the ministry said. Wu Yung-tung (吳運東), former president of the TMA, said the WMA has been very supportive of Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization (WHO) as an observer.
■ Crime
Hijacked fishermen return
A Suao-based fishing boat which was hijacked and taken to China on Oct. 9 was to arrive home today, Suao Fishermen's Radio reported yesterday. Skipper Hung Chi-chen and an engineer -- the only two Taiwanese crew members of the Chin Lung Yu -- were scheduled to arrive in the northeastern port of Suao at around 3am from Shacheng port in Fujian Province, after a four-day ordeal. The Chin Lung Yu was hijacked by six Chinese deckhands on the evening of Oct. 9 after seeking temporary shelter from Typhoon Ma-on at Yaeyama Island in Okinawa. The six Chinese subdued Hung and the engineer before robbing them of NT$3,000 in cash and making away with more than 7,000kg of shark catch and 12,000 liters of gasoline. Neither Hung nor the engineer were hurt, the radio broadcast said. The Chin Lung Yu left Shacheng port early yesterday, it 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
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