DIPLOMACY
Street named after diplomat
A town in suburban Paris has named a street after a senior Taiwanese diplomat, a move that is believed to be the first of its kind in France, a city councilor said on Sunday. Hugues Rondeau, mayor of Bussy-Saint-Georges, a town about 30km east of Paris, will name an alley after Representative to France Michel Lu (呂慶龍), 65, who has served in the post since 2007. The mayor praised Lu’s enthusiasm for his work, City Councilor Philippe Le said. Rondeau was also quoted as saying that the Taiwanese representative has earned support with his creativity and his audacious methods of expanding Taiwan-France relations. Bussy Saint-Georges is twinned with Greater Taichung’s Dajia District (大甲).
MILITARY
Jets stationed in Fujian
A large number of J-6 fighter planes that have been converted into unmanned attack aircraft are being stationed at Liancheng Air Base in Fujian Province, China, according to the latest issue of Kanwa Defense Review. Chinese Web site Huanqiu.com cited the Canadian online magazine as saying that satellite photos taken on July 31, 2011, showed there were at least 55 J-6 aircraft on the base. The magazine said the air base most likely has more J-6s than any other base in Fujian, showing that the Chinese Air Force attaches great importance to the capabilities of the unmanned aircraft. Reports said the J-6, the Chinese-built version of the Soviet MiG-19 “Farmer” fighter aircraft, formed the backbone of the Chinese Air Force in the 1960s and the 1970s. The J-6 fleet was retired in the late 1990s. However, due to the J-6s’ maneuverability, high thrust-to-weight ratio, light weight and suitability for close-range combat, the planes have since been converted into unmanned attack fighters.
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