■ ELECTIONS
Live TV talks announced
The Central Election Commission announced on Friday that four live TV presentations, in which the presidential and vice presidential candidates will present their platforms, will be broadcast at the end of this month. Commission officials said the first of three presentations by presidential candidates Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would be held on Feb. 29. The second will be on March 7. The third -- reserved for the two vice-presidential candidates, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) of the DPP and Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) of the KMT -- will also be held on March 7, while the fourth will be held on March 14, once again featuring Ma and Hsieh.
■ DEFENSE
'US waiting' to sell F-16s
Washington will only consider selling F-16 aircraft to Taiwan after a new president has been elected to avoid giving more teeth to the Democratic Progressive Party administration that is "hostile toward China," a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said. The US will reconsider the long-awaited US$400 million purchase proposal for the 66 aircraft only after the March 22 presidential election and possibly after the May 20 inauguration of the new president, said Su Chi (蘇起), deputy campaign manager for KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). "The US is waiting until after the elections are over," Su said on Friday. Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) also confirmed the delay, saying the US would suggest a price for the F-16s only after a new presidential administration took office. US officials in Taipei declined to comment on the process.
■ HEALTH
CPC issues H5N1 warning
The Consumer Protection Commission (CPC) cautioned travelers planning to visit Britain, Saudi Arabia, Poland, South Korea and Benin to pay attention to bird flu outbreaks in these countries. Travelers should avoid contact with birds or poultry and avoid eating undercooked poultry while in these countries, commission officials said. Citing a recent warning by Taiwan's representative office in the UK, the officials said that three wild swans recently found dead on Chesil Beach in Dorset, southern England, had tested positive for H5N1. In South Korea, an outbreak of the less virulent H7N3 strain was reported in December, they said, adding that bird flu outbreaks have recently been reported in Saudi Arabia, Poland and Benin. These five countries are not listed by Taiwan as non-infected areas of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus, and Taiwan has not imported live poultry or poultry meat from there.
■ ARTS
Local movie scoops award
A Taiwanese film titled What on Earth Have I Done Wrong? (情非得已之生存之道) beat almost 80 other Asian movies to receive the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) Award at the 37th Rotterdam International Film Festival, movie industry sources said yesterday. Director Doze Niu (鈕承澤), who also wrote the screenplay and took the lead role in the film, accepted the award in person at the ceremony on Friday, the sources said. Extending his appreciation to those involved in the production, Niu was quoted as saying that he was sharing the award with all his friends in the Taiwanese film industry. "Their enthusiasm for the film really helped open a window for Taiwan's film industry," Niu said.
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