CROSS-STRAIT TIES
SEF head visits China
Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Lin Join-sane (林中森) left for Nanjing yesterday on his second visit to China since assuming the post in September. During the six-day visit, the nation’s top negotiator with Beijing will also visit other cities in central and southern China — including Kunshan, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen — to meet with Taiwanese businesspeople. Lin said the global economic downturn has led Taiwanese businesspeople in China to shift their focus to the service industry and the two sides are conducting talks on establishing trade in services.
DIPLOMACY
Guatemala given choppers
Taiwan donated two helicopters and a variety of components to diplomatic ally Guatemala on Monday, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help the Central American country boost its ability to respond to natural disasters. Two decommissioned UH-1H utility helicopters were dispatched to Guatemala, while the components will be used to revamp two existing choppers, said Jaime Wu (吳進木), director-general of the ministry’s Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs. Wu added that the helicopters would be used to undertake relief and rescue operations during natural disasters. However, a message posted on Guatemalan Vice President Roxana Baldetti’s Facebook page on Monday said Taiwan delivered four helicopters to Guatemala to reinforce the country’s security capabilities and help it fight drug trafficking. Wu said he did not know why Baldetti said they would be used for a different purpose.
HEALTH
Disease info bill passes
A draft amendment to the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法) that passed an initial screening at the legislature on Monday stipulates that the media must correct false information on disease prevention measures after being alerted by the authorities. Under the revision, if members of the media incorrectly report on the outbreak of communicable diseases or prevention measures during an epidemic, they should make immediate corrections after being notified by authorities to prevent adversely affecting disease control measures. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and opposition parties still need to come to a consensus over the bill. Democratic Progressive Party lawmakers said the bill interferes with the freedom of speech, adding that it is targeted at former television pundit Cheng Hung-yi (鄭弘儀), who repeatedly questioned the safety of influenza vaccines on his talk show.
HEALTH
Bananas have toxic residue
Some bananas grown in Kaohsiung were found to have nearly 200 times the maximum allowed level of fungicide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. The bananas tested were found to have 1.93 parts per million (ppm) of kresoxim-methyl, far above the maximum allowed level of 0.01 ppm, the FDA’s southern management center said. Two batches of beefsteak tomatoes sold in Hsinchu City were also found to be contaminated with the banned pesticide fludioxonil, the FDA said, adding that the tomatoes also had residues of the pesticide carbendazim, 4.45 times higher than the allowed level. Carbendazim is quite toxic and can cause birth defects, lymph node tumors and lower sperm counts, but fludioxonil is less toxic and can be flushed from the the human body one hour after ingestion.
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