AVIATION
Flights talks planned
Taiwan hopes to reach a consensus with China next week on guidelines allowing increases in the number of direct flights across the Strait instead of relying on a hard cap, a Taiwanese official said yesterday. Taiwan and China are scheduled to hold talks on cross-strait flights in Taiyuan, the capital of China’s Shanxi Province, from Monday to Friday, according to Taiwan’s Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA). CAA Director-General Yin Chen-pong (尹承蓬) said that because Taiwan and China hold talks on increasing flights almost every six months, he hoped the two sides could finally agree on a set of rules governing such increases in the future, instead of simply raising the cap again. A maximum of 558 weekly passenger flights are currently permitted between Taiwan and China.
POLITICS
Vanessa Shih sworn in
Former envoy to Singapore Vanessa Shih (史亞平) was sworn in as the new vice foreign minister yesterday, making her one of the few female diplomats to take up the post in the country’s history. Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) praised the 49-year-old’s expertise in diplomacy and mass communication, which he said made her the ideal candidate for the post. Shih was promoted for her “extraordinary performance” in Singapore between 2009 and last year, which helped accelerate bilateral trade talks, Yang said. Taiwan is now in talks with Singapore over a free-trade agreement formally known as the Agreement between Singapore and the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu on Economic Partnership. Shih returned to Taiwan from Singapore earlier this year amid rumors that she offended the Singapore government by making contact with the country’s opposition party and displaying Taiwan’s national flag at an event. She denied the reports.
DIPLOMACY
Tianjin mayor to visit
Tianjin City Mayor Huang Xingguo (黃興國) will head a Chinese delegation to Taiwan from tomorrow to Friday to participate in events around the country, including a meeting on port cooperation between the two sides. Huang was invited by the Taiwan-based Chinese National Federation of Industries. During the six-day trip, the delegation will visit Taipei, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Greater Taichung, Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung. Huang said his administration would assist Taiwanese businesspeople based in his city with finance, labor shortage and market expansion issues. To show support for Taiwanese firms, Taiwanese companies have been included in a new program launched this year to help small and medium-sized firms in China expand their financing channels and export markets, Huang said. There are 2,147 Taiwanese companies in Tianjin City, with total investment reaching US$11.3 billion and an annual growth rate of 30 percent.
TOURISM
Wine tourism promoted
Taiwan may be known for its high-tech sector, but its wines have also been rising in prominence internationally, and the country is eager to promote tourism based on its wineries. This year, four Taiwanese wines received recognition at international competitions, according to the Agriculture and Food Agency. Taiwan has won four gold and 15 silver medals at major wine competitions in the world, according to the agency, which said it hoped Taiwanese would put the wineries on their summer travel agendas.
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