The severing of diplomatic ties between Taiwan and Chad will be a huge obstacle for Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), the head of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, in attending a forum organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in Taipei, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said yesterday.
"Initially, it seemed that it was possible [for Chen to come to Taiwan], but the breaking off of relations with Chad means the situation has changed," Wang said, adding that he had spoken with government officials about the matter.
Wang made the remarks yesterday after meeting with KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
"I told Ma that I am not able to help the party with the matter," Wang said.
The KMT is planning to file an application to the government inviting Chen to attend a cross-strait forum on agricultural cooperation to be held in October.
"As far as I know, the government was considering approving the application, but this may have changed," he said.
Also yesterday, Wang accepted Ma's request to serve as campaign manager for Huang Jun-ying (黃俊英), the KMT's Kaohsiung mayoral candidate, but he rejected an offer to be honorary director of Hau Lung-bin's (郝龍斌) Taipei mayoral bid.
Wang last week said that People First Party Chairman James Soong (
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
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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