■ Cross-strait ties
PFP planning China trip
People First Party (PFP) Legislator Tsai Sheng-chia said yesterday that if a party delegation visits China, it will discuss farming groups investing there and the rights of Chinese fishermen working on Taiwanese ships. Tsai said that a delegation he is planning to organize will probably leave for China in the middle or latter part of this month. Once he receives notification from China, Tsai said that he will talk to the government on the fine points of cross-strait farming policy, "mainly to see where the government's bottom line is." Tsai noted that the government has imposed a great deal of restrictions on farming groups investing in China, and that although the Council of Agriculture has promised to be supportive, the party does not know the real attitude of the government. In addition, Tsai said that he will communicate with both sides of the Taiwan Strait on the issue of Chinese fishermen, on whom Taiwanese fishing vessels rely heavily, to improve their rights.
■ Politics
Action urged
The Legislative Yuan should quickly act on the president's nomination of Control Yuan members for the sake of the public interest, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Lai said the operations of the Control Yuan have come to a halt for more than two months, with some 3,500 complaints having piled up. He called for a swift screening of the name list put forth again by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in order to "save social costs and maintain a good image for the Legislative Yuan." Inter-party negotiations on the issue broke on Monday. Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) set a new round of negotiations for today. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party (PFP) refused to screen the list because of dissatisfaction with the fact that Chen had not replaced certain controversial figures on the initial list. The KMT and PFP have made it clear that they will not consent to the list if Chen does not change the lineup.
■ National defense
New units deployed
Two new rapid response units -- one armored and one artillery -- were established Monday under the Military Police Command to counter attacks from paratroops and to deal with terrorist attacks, Military Police Commander Lieutenant General Shen Shih-chih (沈世籍) said yesterday. The new units will be housed at the Lungsheng and Chianshih bases in Taipei to beef up defense in the nation's political nerve center.
■ Philanthropy
Huge donation given
The Red Cross Society of Taiwan is looking for an anonymous philanthropist who has donated the single largest donation -- US$750,000 (NT$23 million) -- to the society. Reports said the anonymous donor sent a check via UBS AG, Taipei branch recently, with Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), secretary-general of the Red Cross Society, being the designated recipient. Hau said that he was on business trip in Hong Kong when his secretary informed him about the check. The check was sent from Taipei with no return address. Although stunned, Hau said he has always had faith in others, and believes that the donation "must be true." The bank informed him that the money was deposited into the bank account Monday. The Red Cross Society has wanted to say thank you to the "person with a heart of gold," but the bank said it cannot disclose the identity of the sender out of confidentiality concerns.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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