■CROSS-STRAIT
MAC demands respect
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) urged China on Thursday to respect Taiwanese people, in the wake of the expulsion of a Taiwanese scholar by Beijing authorities. Media reports said hearing-impaired Taiwanese physicist Cheng Yao (程曜), who was teaching at Tsing Hua University in Beijing, was accused of being impolite and speaking too loudly when applying for a visa extension recently. As a result, he was detained for a day and ordered to leave China within one month, the reports said. Asked about the matter in a press briefing, MAC Vice Chairman Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) said the government had no opinion about whether Cheng should be granted a visa extension because that was at the discretion of Beijing. However, when processing such applications, the Beijing authorities should respect Taiwanese applicants, he said. Liu said he believed Cheng, who is an expert in nanotechnology, would be able to contribute to Taiwan’s research in the field if he were to return.
■SOCIETY
Hu voted ‘most doting’
Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) was selected as the most doting husband in Taiwan in a recent Internet vote, the results of a survey published on Thursday by Yahoo showed. Yahoo conducted the online voting from Jan. 28 through Wednesday. Hu was voted as the most devoted husband by 7,860 visitors to the Web site, ahead of actor Lee Li-jen (李李仁), with 6,437 votes, and Sean Lien (連勝文), son of former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰), with 448 votes. “Does this mean that I should not run in the year-end mayoral election for the new municipality [that merges Taichung City with Taichung County]?” he asked. Saying that he has not yet made a final decision on whether he will run and that he has not discussed the issue with his wife, Hu said he would ponder the issue when the two go on vacation to the UK this month.
■DIPLOMACY
Vatican invites piano duo
A husband-and-wife piano duo, Rolf-Peter Wille and Lina Yeh (葉綠娜) of Taiwan, has been invited by the Vatican to perform at the 25th founding anniversary celebrations of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, Taiwanese Ambassador to the Holy See Larry Wang (王豫元) said. Wang said he was asked by the council’s chairman, Zygmunt Zimowski, to invite Wille and Yeh as guest performers. Wang said the invitation underlines the Holy See’s recognition of Taiwanese musicians and marks the first time that musicians from Taiwan will perform in Vatican City. The duo is expected to perform music by Bach, Brahms, Edvard Grieg and Francis Poulenc at the function. Yeh also plans to play pieces by Taiwanese composer Chen Yang (陳揚), Wang said. The Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers will host a three-day activity from Tuesday to Thursday to mark its 25th founding anniversary.
■CROSS-STRAIT
First private flight cleared
Taiwan cleared the first direct flight by a private aircraft to China, officials said yesterday. The Gulfstream jet thatgot permission to fly across the Taiwan Strait is owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), one of Taiwan’s richest people, a source close to Gou said. After decades of requiring flights to stop in a third location such as Hong Kong or take lengthy detours for security reasons, Taiwan and China have agreed over the past two years to allow direct passenger and cargo flights. Private jets were included under the agreements, but subject to case-by-case approval.
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