■ Diplomacy
Nauru embassy opens
Nauruan Foreign Affairs, Trade and Finance Minister David Adeang cut the ribbon to open his South Pacific island nation's newest embassy yesterday in Taipei. The opening was marked with a cocktail party last night. Adeang met President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) at the Presidential Office on Monday. Chen said that Nauru had expressed its willingness to set up an embassy during his visit to that country last year. Chen thanked Adeang and Nauruan President Ludwig Scotty for their firm, unstinting support of Taiwan in its attempts to join international organizations such as the UN, the WHO and the Pacific Islands Forum.
PHOTO: LIU HSIH-DEH, TAIPEI TIMES
■ Politics
DPP lawmakers sentenced
Two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators have been found guilty of slandering former DPP Chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德) at a press conference last September. The Taipei District Court said DPP legislators Lin Kuo-ching (林國慶) and Huang Chao-hui (黃昭輝) used offensive language against Shih on Sept. 7 last year. The presiding judge ruled that the press conference was not related to their pair's legislative duties, so their legislative immunity did not apply. Lin was sentenced to 50 days detention, while Huang received a 30-day sentence. Both men can avoid jail time, however, by paying a NT$1,000 per day fine. Lin said he would consult his lawyer about what to do next, while Huang said he would consider whether to appeal.
■ Politics
Su slams Chiu over riot
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday said that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) should be jailed immediately and that he should be deprived of his civil rights. "Chiu is a disgrace to the legislature," Su said. "As a result of his attempt to ram a vehicle into the Kaohsiung District Court, not only should he serve his 14-month jail sentence, but judges should also strip him of his civil rights ... And yet, he is still out there, in public. This is not right. He should be jailed immediately." The premier made his remarks during conversations with KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) at a legislative meeting. Su said Chiu continued to take advantage of this case to promote himself as a hero being jailed for political reasons. The truth, however, is that he led a riot at the Kaohsiung District Court and sullied the image of the KMT and the legislature, Su said. "What he did ... was very humiliating to the legislature," he said.
■ Diplomacy
Hu happy with Japan trip
Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) said yesterday that he was pleased with the results of his six-day visit to Japan. He told a press conference in Japan that he had received positive responses from Yasuchika Negoro, head of the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) leagues organization, and NPB Secretary General Kazuo Hasegawa, about exchanges between the baseball organizations in Taichung and Japan. Hu said he had also invited Japanese professional baseball teams to conduct training sessions at Taichung's new Intercontinental Baseball Stadium. Hu arrived home yesterday.
■ Welfare
No child care planned
The government does not have any plans to introduce a child care subsidy program next year as reported in a local daily, Interior Minister Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) told lawmakers yesterday during an question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan. In its Tuesday edition, the Chinese-language China Times revealed the contents of a research report by the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) on the government's population policy. The daily claimed that the MOI plans to provide a "child care subsidy" to families in an effort to stem the nation's declining birth rates. Under the reported "child care program," families with one child will be entitled to a monthly subsidy of NT$2,000 (US$60), while those with two children will receive NT$3,000 per month, and families with three or more children will be eligible for a monthly subsidy of NT$5,000.
■ Diplomacy
China blasts Huang's trip
China criticized St. Lucia yesterday for allowing the foreign minister of Taiwan to visit the Carribean nation and blasted Taipei for trying to split China. Foreign Minister James Huang (黃志芳) visited St. Lucia last week at the host government's invitation, despite the fact that the tiny Carribean island broke ties with Taiwan in 1997 and now has formal diplomatic relations with China. "It is against the principle set in the communique between China and St. Lucia and hurt the feelings of the Chinese people," Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang (秦剛) said of the visit. "China expressed its strong dissatisfaction and opposition to it," Qin told a news conference. Qin said St. Lucia should respect the "one China" principle and also expressed anger at Taiwan over the visit.
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