DIPLOMACY
US Congress group visits
The new chairman of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs arrived in Taiwan yesterday for a three-day visit to discuss bilateral ties and trade issues, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said. Republican US Representative Ed Royce is leading a US congressional delegation to visit Taiwan, as part of their East Asian trip, the first overseas trip in his new capacity, the AIT said. Royce is scheduled to meet with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others, the ministry said. The 20-member delegation also includes US Representative Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee, the ministry added. It is rare that the heads of the Republican and Democratic parties in the committee visit Taiwan simultaneously, the ministry said, adding that this shows the importance of Taiwan-US ties and US bipartisan support for Taiwan.
CRIME
Shooting suspect questioned
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division (SID) yesterday said a suspect linked to the 2004 election-eve shooting of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and then-vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) is being questioned by prosecutors. However, SID spokesman Chen Hung-ta (陳宏達) declined to reveal details of the questioning. Tang Shou-yi (唐守義), who allegedly remodeled the gun and made the two bullets used in the shooting of Chen Shui-bian and Lu on March 19, 2004, was repatriated on Friday, following his recent arrest in China. Chen and Lu were shot while traveling in an open jeep during a campaign motorcade the day before the presidential election. They did not sustain any life-threatening injuries. The official investigation of the shooting identified Chen Yi-hsiung (陳義雄) as the shooter; however, he was found dead in what was believed to be a suicide.
POLITICS
Resignations approved
The Presidential Office approved the resignation of Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Liu Te-shun (劉德勳) and Minister Without Portfolio James Hsueh (薛承泰) in a decree on Friday. Liu, who was also the spokesman of the council, disputed reports that his resignation indicated an imminent Cabinet reshuffle. He said he resigned to make room for new blood. As a career civil servant, Liu was transferred from the Executive Yuan to the council in 1993 to lead its Department of Legal and Political Affairs, and was promoted from that post to his current position in 2002.
EMPLOYMENT
Taipei to hold job fairs
The Taipei City Employment Services Office will hold a series of job fairs from tomorrow till Friday, with several companies to offer about 120 job openings in the events, the office said yesterday. The office, which belongs to Taipei City’s Department of Labor, said the first fair would be held in its Dinghao (頂好) employment center tomorrow, the second at its Xinyi District (信義) center on Wednesday and the third in its Neihu District (內湖) center on Friday. The employers who will seek new employees for their businesses include courier services provider President Transnet Corp and security services provider ISSWorld Taiwan, the office said. The recruitment activity will cover a wide range of jobs, such as drivers, delivery personnel, administrators, assistants, cleaning staff, security guards and shopkeepers.
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