American Institute in Taiwan Director William Stanton yesterday denied media reports that the administration of US President Barack Obama had frozen congressional notifications of arms sale to Taiwan because of pressure from China.
Stanton reiterated the US government's commitment to make available to Taiwan defense articles and services based on its evaluation of Taiwan's defense needs as stipulated in the Taiwan Relations Act.
“Whatever the press may say, we abide by the Taiwan Relations Act. We continue on the regular basis to assess Taiwan's defense needs and act in accordance with the assessment … So nothing changes as to our policy on arms sales to Taiwan,” he said when asked for comments on reports by Defense News that three notifications had been frozen, with more expected to stack up as the year progresses.
US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert Hammond-Chambers was quoted by the Taipei Times as saying that the freeze has been in force for “at least a month,” but would not confirm the content of the notifications.
“I am not aware of any suspension right now,” Stanton said.
He said it was a “misunderstanding” that there were scheduled notifications for arms deals.
“There is no schedule particularly for notifications. Notification occurs when you need to notify the Congress because an arms sale is going to take place. Until that happens, until the US government makes decisions on an arms sale, there is no notification,” Stanton said.
The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency is required by law to notify Congress of the arms deal after it is announced by the US government. US lawmakers have 30 days to comment on the proposed deal.
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