■ENVIRONMENT
Nuclear waste to China?
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Justin Huang (黃健庭) said yesterday he had suggested the government discuss with Beijing the possibility of storing Taiwan’s nuclear waste in China. Huang told reporters he shared the idea that low-level radioactive waste could be stored abroad with Vice Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) and other personnel. Now that cross-strait relations have improved, Taipei could be in a position to hold negotiations with Beijing on storing the waste in remote areas of China, he said. Huang floated the idea after the Chinese-language United Evening News reported on Friday that the Ministry of Economic Affairs had chosen Daren Township (達仁) in Taitung, Mudan Township (牡丹) in Pingtung County and Wangan Township (望安) in Penghu County as potential sites for the storage of low-radioactivity nuclear waste. Final decisions would not be made until after regional referendums and environmental impact assessments are held.
■POLITICS
Tsai off to the US
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was scheduled to depart for the US today on a two-week visit, a party spokesman said yesterday. DPP international affairs department head Lin Cheng-wei (林成蔚) told a press conference that Tsai, on her first US visit since becoming DPP leader, will deliver a speech at her alma mater Cornell University on the past, present and future of cross-strait relations. Tsai will also travel to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, where she will visit the Heritage Foundation think tank. Lin said Tsai was expected to meet with aides and advisers of US presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. She will also attend fundraising parties in San Jose, California and New York, Lin said.
Deadlines announced
Chunghwa Post Co (中華郵政) said yesterday that the deadline for shipping packages and mail by sea for Christmas and the New Year holidays is approaching. The postal service said countries had all set early deadlines for mail and packages sent via sea transport. The earliest deadline was set in Africa — tomorrow — followed by Europe and Oceania on Sept. 15. Countries in the Americas set their deadline on Sept. 20, while people in Asia have until Sept. 23 to send their mail.
■SOCIETY
No online marriages
The Ministry of Justice yesterday denied a newspaper report that said the government planned to allow couples to complete marriage registration on the Internet. Chang Ching-yun (張清雲), director of the ministry’s Department of Legal Affairs, said that registering marriages online would be convenient but problematic, especially in regard to verifying the new couple’s identities, and determining if the individuals were indeed willing to be married or if they had been forced to do so or were acting on impulse. Chang was responding to a Chinese-language United Daily News report yesterday that said the ministry was planning to allow online registration. Under an amendment to the Civil Code that took effect on May 23, couples must visit a household registration office in person to register their marriage. Before that date, a marriage was considered binding if a ceremony had been presided over by a notary public or a judge and at least two witnesses.
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