With several hundred police officers providing security, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) yesterday visited the Taipei Zoo’s Panda Hall and took a ride at the nearby Maokong Gondola after arriving in Taipei to prepare for cross-strait talks today.
However, tight security failed to block protesters, with several Taiwan Solidarity Union members carrying placards while shouting: “Investment protection agreement does not protect Taiwan” and “Taiwan and China, one country on each side,” during the visit by Chen and the Chinese delegation to the Zoo’s Panda Hall.
Ignoring the protests, Chen, accompanied by Straits Exchange Foundation Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), visited the two giant pandas sent by China as a gift in 2008, Tuan Tuan (團團) and Yuan Yuan (圓圓), and then took a ride along the Maokong Gondola.
Chen lauded the zoo and the Taipei City Government for taking care of the two pandas and said cross-strait exchanges on animal conservation would promote cross-strait relations.
“There are so many places I want to visit in Taipei City, but I particularly miss Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan. I traveled to Sichuan many times to help arrange for the two pandas [to be sent to Taiwan]. Although we’ve sent pandas to other countries, these two pandas carried more significance because they symbolize our [cross-strait] friendship,” he said.
The pair were selected from 23 panda cubs early in 2006 by China as a gift to Taiwan following the meeting between former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in 2005.
The pandas have become some of the zoo’s most popular animals.
Hau said the zoo would continue in its efforts to breed a “next generation” of pandas, adding that he expected cross-strait tourism to prosper with further cross-strait exchanges.
Hau later presented Chen with a vase decorated with panda patterns. In return, Chen gave Hau a vase featuring flowers.
The city government later arranged for Chen to ride in the Maokong Gondola along with his delegation.
The hot weather appeared to make the ride less pleasant and Chen was spotted using a fan to cool off inside the cable car.
Chen and his delegation had originally planned to visit Hualien, but canceled their trip following the passage of Typhoon Saola.
The Chinese envoy will visit other locations in Taipei tomorrow following a meeting with Chiang today.
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:
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