■ Culture
Sinfonietta performs in Paris
The Taipei Sinfonietta Philharmonic Orchestra performed classic works by J.S. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as well as a piece by Taiwanese composer Huang Fou-tong (黃輔棠) in Paris Wednesday. Performing at the 18th-century Saint Roch Church near the Louvre Museum, the orchestra delighted listeners with Bach's Sonata for Violin, Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 and Huang's Variations on the Theme by Chen Chu-suei (陳主稅). The sinfonietta, headed by violinist Su Shien-ta (蘇顯達), is currently on a European tour which will also take it to Slovakia this month. On Tuesday, the group gave a highly acclaimed performance at the Auvers-sur-Oise Music Festival.
■ Diplomacy
Lin protests to WTO
Taiwan's permanent representative to the WTO Lin Yi-fu (林義夫) has protested to the organization over the omission of Taiwan officials' official titles in its new directory and demanded that the directory be republished, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official said yesterday. Taiwan's permanent mission to the WTO will also provide a list of its members, including their official titles, to the WTO missions of other countries for their reference, according to MOFA spokesman Michel Lu (呂慶龍). In the new WTO directory published recently, the official titles of all officials at Taiwan's permanent mission are omitted with the exception of those for the permanent representative and deputy permanent representative. The WTO reportedly made the omission due to pressure from China.
■ Security
Lilley scoffs at report
Former US Ambassador to China James Lilley expressed his disapproval Wednesday of a Washington Times report that Beijing might take military action against Taiwan in two years. Lilley, who is now director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said China's military buildup over recent years does not necessarily mean Beijing has a military ambition in the near term. In addition, the US military deployment in the Asia-Pacific region and the security cooperation between the US and its regional allies will deter China from making an impetuous move, Lilley said. The close economic relations between Taiwan and China, marked by investments worth US$150 billion in China by Taiwanese businesses, also makes a war unlikely across the Taiwan Strait, he said.
■ Diplomacy
MOFA to monitor ties
Taipei will closely watch trade exchanges between Guatemala and China, although Guatemala's president and foreign affairs minister promised that Taiwan-Guatemala diplomatic ties will remain unchanged, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Michel Lu (呂慶龍) said yesterday. According to Lu, Guatemala has been seeking to expand its exports to China to offset its long-term trade imbalance, which is the main reason it wants to open a trade office in China. The ministry will continue to monitor expansion in ties between China and Guatemala, even though they are economically oriented for the time being, Lu said. Beijing is very interested in Guatemala's petroleum and natural gas, while Guatemala hopes to export sugar, bananas and coffee to China, the Guatemalan Economic Ministry said recently.
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