■ Diplomacy
Caribbean support offered
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines firmly support Taiwan's objection to China's attempt to enact an "anti-secession law, " an official from Taiwan's embassy in the Caribbean country said Friday. The diplomat said that Saint Vincent and the Grenadines' Deputy Prime Minister Louis Straker, who doubles as the foreign affairs minister, said in a statement March 10 that his country firmly supports Taiwan's opposition to enactment of the law, which authorizes Beijing to use "non-peaceful means" should Taiwan move toward independence. Noting that Taiwan has contributed significantly to the development of every sector of the Saint Vincent and the Grenadines' economy since the two countries established diplomatic relations two decades ago, Straker said his country and government support Taiwan's status as an independent country and the Taiwan people's right to decide their own future.
■ Health
Pet vaccines available
The Council of Agriculture (COA) said that vaccines for cats and dogs are in sufficient supply and urged owners to take their pets to the veterinarian to receive their regular shots. The government lifted late last year the ban on imports from the US of cat and dog vaccines containing ruminant serum, and that so far, 409,761 doses have been imported. The officials said that in view of the fact that around 70,000 doses on average are used in Taiwan every month, the current supply should be sufficient to meet demand for the first half of the year. They reminded pet owners to take their cats and dogs to veterinarians to receive vaccinations regularly to ensure their pet's health and to avoid diseases that could be contracted by people.
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
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
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