■ Diplomacy
US asked to help Lee
The government has requested that Washington grant former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) due diplomatic courtesy during his visit to the US next week, Taiwan's representative to the US David Lee (李大維) said on Wednesday. Lee said he sent a letter to the US State Department and had held talks with officials, during which he asked the US government to facilitate the former president's entry into the country and provide him with security. The US government is expected to reply to Taiwan's request soon, Lee said. The former president is planning to visit Anchorage, New York, Washington and Los Angeles. During his stay in Washington from Oct. 17 to Oct. 20, Lee will meet with members of Congress, academics and Taiwanese expatriates.
■ Health
Bird-flu testing urged
The government wants visitors from four Asian countries affected by bird flu to test their health for 10 days after arrival, the Center for Disease Control said yesterday. Beginning on Monday, visitors from Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam will be handed a booklet at Taiwan's airports asking them to take their own temperatures each morning and evening during the 10 days following their arrival, the center said in a news release. If they show flu symptoms such as fever, coughing or a sore throat, they should wear surgical masks and contact a local health facility. The center also advised Taiwanese traveling to affected areas to avoid contact with poultry. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has swept through poultry populations in many parts of Asia since 2003, jumping to humans and killing at least 62 people in the region. No cases have been reported in Taiwan yet.
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