DEFENSE
Standing rule canceled
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday confirmed media reports that it had ordered units to cancel the long-standing regulation that all personnel must stand at attention whenever the names of Republic of China founding father Sun Yat-sen (孫中山) and former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) are mentioned at gatherings. Government agencies, schools and the military had also followed this rule, but after martial law was lifted in 1987 they dropped the requirement. Standing was considered a sign of respect. Local Chinese-languange media reported yesterday that the military had ordered all its units to abandon the practice a few days ago.
DIPLOMACY
MOFA defends Spratlys’ rule
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday reiterated the nation’s sovereignty over the Spratly Islands (南沙群島), shortly after Philippine lawmakers visited to the islands to declare their country’s ownership. “The Spratlys and the surrounding waters are the undisputable territory of the Republic of China,” ministry spokesman James Chang (章計平) said. “The government advocates shelving the disputes and jointly developing the area’s resources with neighboring countries, on the principles of peace and reciprocity.” Asked whether the ministry would lodge a protest with Manila over the Philippine lawmakers’ claim, Chang said the idea was being mulled. The Spratlys are a group of more than 750 reefs, islets, and atolls in the South China Sea that are claimed either entirely or in part by Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.
SOCIETY
Rice campaign planned
A total of 230 restaurants and stores in Taipei formed a rice-promotion alliance yesterday to stage a month-long campaign promoting the staple, organizers said. The campaign, which begins on Saturday and runs through Aug. 19, will offer four different themes for rice products — health, tradition, originality and exoticism — according to the city’s Department of Economic Development. Besides fried rice and steamed rice, the campaign will also feature rice bread, cakes and puddings, and other rice products. A series of promotional events, such as prize draws, will also be held, organizers said. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), who attended the press conference, encouraged the public to eat more rice. Hau said people in Taiwan used to eat about 98kg of rice per person per year. Annual personal consumption has dropped to 48kg, he said.
SPORTS
Kaohsiung features baseball
Baseball fans in Greater Kaohsiung will be able to enjoy a multitude of games this summer after the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) announced the All-Star Game would be held on Saturday and Sunday at Chengching Lake Baseball Field, with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) expected to throw the ceremonial first pitch. The 2011 World Children’s Baseball Fair (WCBF), cofounded by Taiwanese-Japanese baseball great Sadaharu Oh (王貞治). is scheduled to take place from Wednesday to Aug. 4. Children from 19 countries have been invited to take part in the event, the WCBF Web site said. The fair was founded in 1989 by Oh, US homerun king Hank Aaron and Akiko Agishi, a Japanese academic dedicated to boosting cultural exchanges. The non-profit organization’s mission is “to share the dream of friendship and teamwork with the children of the world and to sow the seeds of that dream through our international baseball fair.”
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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