■ Diplomacy
Chen calls on pope for help
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has asked the pope to try to stop China's bullying. He made the request in a letter posted on the Presidential Office Web site, following Pope Benedict's New Year message in which he called for peace and respect for human rights. "As Your Holiness indicates, `Those with greater political, technical or economic power may not use that power to violate the rights of others who are less fortunate,'" Chen's letter said, referring to China. "Taiwan has long been suppressed by a more powerful neighbor and is still refused entry to the United Nations ... Please also urge China to dismantle the missiles it has aimed at Taiwan and to renounce the use of force, thus giving peace and stability in Taiwan, and the Asia-Pacific region, a chance," the letter said.
■ Immigration
New test introduced
The Ministry of the Interior announced this week that foreigners applying for citizenship will have the option of taking a new examination that tests Chinese language skills and general knowledge of the nation, as well as the duties of a citizen. All would-be citizens are required to pass such a test, but the ministry has teamed up with the Ministry of Education and other public and private organizations to design a simpler, more relevant test, which is now available to examinees. Staple questions such as: "At what age is a minor legally allowed to set off fireworks, or other similar projectiles?" will no longer be asked in the newer version of the test, the release said. They will be replaced with questions such as: "Where is there likely to be the most oxygen in a room filled with smoke due to a fire?" will be asked in the new version.
■ Justice
Death penalty still an issue
The Ministry of Justice said yesterday that it would continue to solicit views from all sectors of society this year on whether to abolish capital punishment. Chang Chin-yun (張清雲), director of the ministry's Department of Prevention, Rehabilitation and Protection, said it would conduct public hearings, seminars and debates to help the public think about and debate the issue. He said that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in 2000 said that he would like to scrap the death penalty and that the ministry's policy to eventually abolish it remained unchanged. He noted that the concept of "getting even" was still prevalent in Taiwan and that the abrogation of the death penalty would have to wait for "a maturing of society."
■ Agriculture
False reports hurt farmers
False media reports on poultry farms have apparently taken their toll on the nation's duck farmers and restaurant owners. In a press conference hosted by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wu Ming-ming (吳明敏) yesterday, several duck farmers complained that sales of ducks have been affected after TVBS last month broadcast what it claimed was exclusive coverage of duck processing, in which employees at the slaughterhouse allegedly removed duck feathers with asphalt. Since last month, the price of duck meat has dropped from NT$43 to NT$34 per kilogram. Restaurant owners also said that the reports had caused a 50 percent fall in business. The breeders asked the media to balance its coverage of the duck industry, threatening to launch a long-term campaign against negative news coverage if they were ignored. This came after coverage was later found to be false, as the slaughterhouse had actually been using resin-based feather removal gels.
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