■ Politics
Australia defends China ties
Stronger economic relations with China will allow Australia to push Beijing to reach a peaceful solution to its bitter feud with Taiwan, Defense Minister Robert Hill said yesterday. Australia and China this week announced the start of formal talks on a possible free trade deal after Prime Minister John Howard became one of the world's first leaders to grant free market status to China. Hill played down suggestions that closer economic ties could compromise Australia's military response to any future tensions between China and Taiwan. Last month, Howard said Australia could help mediate between China and the US to prevent a military conflict. "I would say that [a free-trade deal] is useful in our goals of persuading a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan issue," Hill said. "Our position is that there is one China and there are differences between China and Taiwan and that they need to be resolved peacefully." China is Australia's third-largest trading partner and second-largest export market.
■ Politics
Cabinet treated to breakfast
Cabinet members yesterday morning tucked into a light breakfast before the weekly Cabinet meeting. Cabinet Spokesman Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said the Cabinet members seemed surprised by the arrangement, which was suggested by Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷). Cho said that the light breakfast may become a permanent fixture at the Cabinet meetings, and that the premier may also invite reporters who cover Cabinet affairs to partake in the breakfast before the weekly meeting every Wednesday. However, the meeting will still be held behind closed doors, and reporters are prohibited from releasing any detailed information until after the press conference following the meeting.
■ Diplomacy
Chen may visit Fiji
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) may visit Fiji during his upcoming tour of the nation's allies in the South Pacific, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday. Chen is scheduled to fly to the Marshall Islands on May 1 in a week-long trip which will also take him to Kiribati and Tuvalu. A local evening paper cited informed sources as saying that Chen might be able to visit Fiji despite the lack of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Sources from Fiji said the country was "very optimistic" that Chen would travel to the island and meet high-ranking officials there, the paper said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined comment.
■ Environment
Chang's resignation gets nod
The Minister of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Chang Juu-En's (張祖恩) resignation was approved by the Executive Yuan yesterday. Beginning Sunday, the vacancy will be temporarily filled by Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴), incumbent EPA vice minister. Chang took the EPA's helm in October 2003, when former EPA head Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) resigned amid controversy over the environmental impact assessment for a planned highway construction project in Pinglin, Taipei County. In April 2001, when Chang was an environmental engineering professor at National Cheng Kung University, Hau invited him to serve as his deputy. According to the law, the maximum term for a professor to be temporarily transferred to the government is four years. Chang thus resigned from the EPA to return to his previous position at the university.
■ Tuna industry
Number of boats to fall
Measures are being taken to reduce the number of tuna fishing boats to comply with international conservation efforts, Taiwan Tuna Association president Wang Shun-lung (王順隆) said yesterday. During a meeting of the association in Kaohsiung, Wang said that international fisheries organizations had expressed concern over the issue and pressed the UN to impose sanctions on countries that refuse to comply. According to Wang, the association has worked out a plan to reduce the number of tuna fishing boats, which now amounts to more than 600, after coordinating with members of the tuna industry. Wang said tuna fishing is a very competitive international industry. Wang said Taiwan is overly reliant on the Japanese market while lacking in resources, and he claimed that the tuna quotas enjoyed by Taiwan were insufficient. Under these circumstances, he said, reducing the number of boats was a measure that had to be adopted until new markets were developed.
■ Trade
Utah delegation on the way
A US newspaper reported on Tuesday that eight Utah lawmakers and their spouses will travel to Taiwan this week on a "goodwill trade mission" paid for by the Taiwanese government. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that former Utah Senate president Cap Ferry, now a corporate lobbyist, organized the trip. The report said the 11-day visit, including a side trip to Vietnam that the lawmakers are paying for themselves, puts Utah leaders "in the middle of the international shoving match between Taiwan and China." The Utah House unanimously passed a resolution during the general session supporting Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization.
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