■ Business
Taiwan to host FCEM in 2007
The Taiwanese delegation attending the world congress of the World Association of Women Entrepreneurs (FCEM) in Scotland has won the right for Taiwan to host the event in 2007. The 52nd world congress was held in Glasgow last week, with more than 200 delegates from more than 40 countries taking part. The association, originally a businesswomen's group in France set up following World War II, has grown to become a global organization with the aim of promoting solidarity and friendship among women entrepreneurs. The dele-gation used the meeting to promote understanding of Taiwan. It also made a generous donation to a charity auction initiated by Britain's Princess Anne.
■ Diplomacy
TECO sends petition
The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Los Angeles sent a petition on Friday to the LA missions of 23 EU member nations urging that the EU's ban on arms sales to China not be lifted. The petition was written under the name of Wei Wu-lien (魏武煉), director of the office, with the sig-natures of hundreds of Taiwanese and foreign supporters. The petition urges the EU not to lift its arms embargo against China for the sake of global security and peace, and calls the EU's attention to Beijing's continuous military buildup. It also warns that a lifting of the ban would sharpen the cross-strait crisis, spur an arms race and give rise to regional conflict. Early this month, the office launched a "Global E-petition Campaign" on the GoPetition Web site. Offi-cials said that the campaign has won the support of nearly 600 people around the world and that they hope the number of signatures collected will top those of all the other petitions posted on the Web site by the end of the month. The petition will then be submitted to the European Parliament.
■ Utilities
No timetable for rate hikes
Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥) said yesterday that the govern-ment has no timetable for raising water or electricity rates. Ho made the remarks in response to reports that her ministry was planning to adjust water and electricity rates separately, with electricity rates expected to be raised first. Ho said the government will commun-icate with the public to seek a consensus before making a decision on hiking water or electricity rates. She said the ministry will present a reasonable pricing calcu-lation plan for the public's reference to make sure the decision-making is trans-parent, because the adjust-ment of public utility prices concerns every family and company.
■ Tourism
Liner docks in Taichung
The five-star Japanese cruise liner Asuka arrived at Tai-chung Harbor yesterday carrying 558 Japanese pas-sengers, who were wel-comed by Taichung County Commissioner Huang Chung-sheng (黃仲生) and officials of the Taichung Harbor Bureau. While the liner was being escorted into the harbor by a tow boat, a fountain display, folk dancing and music shows were put on for the visitors. The Asuka is also the only five-star cruise liner in Asia. The Asuka is about 192m long, 24m wide and 29m high. The visitors, who are retired workers of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, toured northern Europe this sum-mer and are now on a fall-winter trip to Taiwan and Southeast Asia. The Japan-ese will visit Sun Moon Lake, Lukang, Taichung City and the National Palace Museum.
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