A group of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators left for China yesterday, saying that their trip was aimed at building bridges across the Taiwan Strait by initiating negotiations over cross-strait charter flights.
"Since the government hasn't made any progress in starting negotiations with China, the KMT wants to pressure the government to step up the pace," said Tseng Yung-chuan (曾永權), leader of the group.
A high-ranking Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) official, requesting anonymity, yesterday criticized the KMT trip, saying that it would only serve to destroy the progress the government has made.
The official said that after Premier Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) announcement on Aug. 3 that Taiwan is willing to discuss cross-strait charter flights for passengers and cargo transportation alike, Beijing responded that it welcomed Hsieh's remarks. This development proved that some consensus about this issue had been achieved, he said.
"How can the KMT legislators say that the government hasn't made any progress?" the official said.
It would be immoral of the KMT to destroy any progress through the group's interference or force negotiations to come to a standstill, the official said.
The official urged the KMT legislators to assume the customary role of an opposition party by monitoring government policy, not creating difficulties for the government's efforts to advance the development of cross-strait relations.
As the government has commissioned the Taipei Airlines Association (TAA) -- a private group composed of local airlines -- to be its representative in arranging details of the negotiations, the MAC said that the KMT could exchange opinions with China but should not undermine the government's authority.
Huang Wei-feng (
In related news,the Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday granted a request filed by local carriers to fly over China's territorial airspace, urging the Chinese authorities to also give the green light to the request to help the carriers save on fuel costs amid skyrocketing oil prices.
Taiwanese carriers are allowed to file applications to the ministry's Civil Aeronautics Administration starting today, according to an announcement yesterday.
The nation's two largest carriers, China Airlines (華航) and EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), were delighted over this measure, saying that they are ready to file their applications.
China Airlines will apply for permission to reroute 44 passenger flights per week over China's airspace -- including flights between Taipei and Hanover, Delhi, Vienna, Frankfurt and Chiang Mai -- and 20 cargo flights per week, including flights between Taipei and Abu Dhabi, Delhi and Luxembourg.
EVA Airways will apply for rerouted flights between Taipei and Paris, Mumbai, Delhi, Hanoi, Vientiane and Dubai.
Additional reporting by staff reporter Jessie Ho
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