■ Culture
Shaolin monks `regret' ban
China's Shaolin monks were barred from visiting Taiwan to give kung fu lessons since the event did not meet cross-strait "professional exchange" rules, organizers said yesterday. "We deeply regret the government's rejection of our application for 45 Shaolin monks to teach martial arts to the general public in Taiwan," said a spokesman for Taiwan's Chinese Shaolin Association. The association had arranged for the monks to offer kung fu lessons free-of-charge in separate groups at 23 locations across the nation, including orphanages and Aboriginal villages. The Mainland Affairs Council on Thursday rejected the association's application on the grounds of "serious violation of the rules." "Cross-strait programs have to meet the criteria of `professional exchanges' but this event doesn't," the council's vice chairman Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) said. According to the council, Shaolin monks should limit their "exchanges" to martial arts professionals only, not the general public, and the monks should act as one group during their stay in Taiwan.
■ Airlines
Worker strike halts flights
Disruption of Air New Zealand flights to and from Taiwan and other international destinations will continue until tomorrow despite the settlement of an industrial dispute with flight attendants, the airline said. Stoppages since last Monday by international flight attendants have forced the cancellation of 85 flights -- including nearly one third of Air New Zealand's long haul services -- disrupting travel for 15,000 passengers. Talks during the week between the airline and the attendants' union over pay and conditions ended successfully Friday. But it was too late to restore flights cancelled for today and tomorrow, said Air New Zealand's general manager for international services, Ed Sims. A total of 29 flights have been cancelled for today and tomorrow. Services to Asia have been worst affected by the strike, including flights to and from Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan.
■ Fisheries
Government urges respect
Fishing authorities are asking local fishermen to respect the government and abide by the temporary fishing demarcation line as the government gears up for talks with Tokyo July 29 over recent fishery disputes. Authorities are also asking Japan via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to restrain its patrol boats from interrupting Taiwanese fishing vessels in waters where there is an overlap of Taiwanese and Japanese economic zones. Taiwan and Japan should try to create and maintain a friendly and peaceful atmosphere for the negotiations, they said. The officials, underscored the government's position that it will not compromise on its sovereignty claim over the Diaoyutais (釣魚台) -- a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea located around 120 nautical miles northeast of Taiwan. Taiwan and Japan's conflicting sovereignty claim over the islands has been at the center of fishing disputes for years.
■ Athletics
NPA plans police games bid
The National Police Administration (NPA) outlined its plan to win a bid to host the World Police and Fire Games, including seeking the support of international law-enforcement organizations, NPA officers said. Describing the event as "the Olympics for police and firefighters," an NPA officer said many countries want to host the event. The Australian city of Adelaide has been designated to host the games in 2007. Taiwan began participating in the games in 1999.
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