■ Cross-strait ties
Yu comments on PFP's bill
The Presidential Office has "three bottom lines" for the enactment of a proposed "cross-strait peace promotion law," President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) chief of staff Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday. At a party in honor of members of the media, Yu said that the bottom lines are that there is no "1992 consensus" on sovereignty or "one China" policy; that if an office is created to take responsibility for the implementation of the "peace law," it is acceptable that it be established under the Presidential Office; and that the "peace law's" content or stipulations should not infringe on the purview of the president and should comply with the principles of the Constitution. This marks the first time that the Presidential Office has made any statement on the proposed "cross-strait peace promotion law" initiated by the People First Party that is currently under debate in the Legislative Yuan. Yu, the secretary-general of the Presidential Office, reiterated that as long as the draft law complies with the three bottom lines, the Presidential Office will not interfere in either its enactment or its implementation.
■ Transit
MRT seeks correct English
To be able to provide information that uses correct English, the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation (TRTC) is organizing a competition to identify errors in its English publications from Sunday to July 31. During this period, the general public will be invited to find errors in the MRT's public displays and in publication materials. The TRTC says that the activity is aimed at improving Taipei's bilingual environment and raising the city's international image, and that their goal is to provide all relevant publications, Web sites and signs in both Chinese and English. The scope of the competition includes finding errors in spelling, word usage, sequence, translation and grammar. Participants who correctly identify errors that do not overlap with entries of other participants will each receive a "Beitou Resort Recreation Center One-day Ticket." Detailed information can be found at the TRTC's bilingual Web site at www.trtc.com.tw/
■ Society
Most teenagers are unhappy
Nearly 70 percent of Taiwan's teenagers do not feel they are leading a happy life, and what troubles them most is academic performance, lack of communication with parents, and the inability to overcome depression and cope with pressures in life, a survey released Thursday found. The Carnegie Training Center surveyed 2,167 young people aged between 13 and 18 last year and found that the traditional value of emphasizing academic achievement has become the top worry of Taiwan's young people. Hei Yu-lung (黑幼龍), an analyst with the training center, said most parents in Taiwan are willing to spend a great deal of money to get their kids into the best school, without realizing that it is self-confidence, communication ability and human relationships that affect a person's life at home, work and in society. Looking into why Taiwan's teenagers do not usually have good communication skills, Hei found that they spend most of their time studying, while leisure time is spent surfing the Internet, watching TV, playing computer games or talking on their cellphones. "They do not have a lot of chances to practice their communication skills, so they remain quite aloof from their peers and parents," he said, suggesting that they try to go beyond just being "academic achievers" and be more creative in developing their potential and enjoy life.
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