NATIONAL DEFENSE
Ma to inspect exercise
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) will inspect a live-fire joint-forces exercise on Thursday in the south, Ministry of National Defense spokesman Major General David Lo (羅紹和) said yesterday. The inspection is part of Ma’s efforts to show support for the military ahead of this year’s Dragon Boat Festival, Lo said. The drill, to be held at a training base in Pingtung County, will involve the army, air force and navy, the ministry said and will include anti-tank missiles. The opposition accused Ma of neglecting national defense after he missed the start of the Han Kuang exercises in April because he was abroad, and then spent only a few minutes watching another drill.
DIPLOMACY
Lawmakers set up Thai group
The legislature established an association yesterday aimed at promoting friendly interaction with the Thai parliament and boosting exchanges between the two countries. The Taiwan-Thailand Parliamentary Amity Association is chaired by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟), with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) serving as honorary chairman. Citing close bilateral exchanges in agriculture, trade, labor, tourism and law enforcement, Chao said he expects the group to further strengthen ties between the two countries. Exchanges in agriculture, labor and the cultural and creative industry are among the areas to be promoted, Chao said.
ENVIRONMENT
Cigarette butts pose risk
The 10 billion cigarette butts that are discarded each year in the country are releasing poisonous chemicals into the environment that will not go away easily, the Homemakers United Foundation said yesterday. Foundation representatives said the most common places where discarded cigarette butts end up are drains, flower plots and gutters. Lin Hsiu-chin (林秀琴), a foundation official, said each cigarette butt means that someone has gotten away with littering. She called on the government to crack down on such “poisonous garbage creators” and to install more cigarette butt receptacles in public places. John Tung Foundation director Lin Ching-li (林清麗) said there was an immediate need to tackle the problem, saying more action needs to be taken to create a healthy environment.
DIPLOMACY
Chen Chu leaves for US
Greater Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) left yesterday for Portland for a sister city promotion and will also visit San Francisco to solicit investment during a 13-day trip to the western US and Canada. Chen said she was invited by Portland officials to attend the Portland Rose Festival on Saturday. Kaohsiung will contribute two dragon boat-themed floats to the festival as gifts. The city’s delegation will comprise more than 70 people, including 20 city councillors and students on the Shu-te Home Economics and Commercial High School dragon boat team, she said. Lan Chien-chang (藍健菖), head of the municipality’s Economic Development Bureau, said officials would also visit businesses in San Francisco, including Autodesk, which Lan said is a leader in 3D design software for manufacturing, engineering and entertainment. The city government hopes to interest companies like Autodesk in investing in Kaohsiung. Chen is also scheduled to stop in Vancouver, Canada, before she returns to Taiwan on June 16.
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