CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Respect sovereignty: DPP
Visits by Chinese officials would be welcomed under the precondition that they respect Taiwan’s sovereignty and democracy, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Policy Research Committee executive director Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said. Wu made the remarks in response to comments by Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦), who yesterday said he welcomed a visit to Taiwan by China’s new Taiwan Affairs Office director, Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), as long as the timing and conditions are right. He did not elaborate. Wu said the government should uphold the principles of “sovereignty, reciprocal and democratic values” when dealing with visiting Chinese officials.
SPORTS
Xavier Chen donates to CTFA
Taiwanese-Belgian soccer player Xavier Chen (陳昌源) yesterday donated NT$1 million (US$33,600) to the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA), in the hopes that the donation would help the association organize international friendly games that would promote the game in Taiwan. Chen said the donation was something he could do as an individual to help Taiwan promote soccer, and “there is no reason why Taiwan can not do better at sports.” The CTFA said it is in talks with Canada and New Zealand for an international friendly in Taiwan. Chen, who has a Taiwanese father and a French mother, played for KV Mechelen, a Belgian First Division team in Antwerp Province, until December last year, when he signed a contract with Guizhou Renhe of the Chinese Super League. The rightback made headlines in Taiwan in 2011 when he obtained Republic of China citizenship and joined the national team. He made his international debut and scored the game-winning penalty in a game against Malaysia.
WEATHER
Low rainfall expected
The country is likely to continue to experience lower-than-average rainfall in the next few months, which will put an additional strain on the country’s water supply, the Central Weather Bureau forecast yesterday. With several areas already implementing or considering water-rationing measures, the predicted low rainfall is expected to exacerbate the situation, the bureau said, adding that the dry weather is likely to persist until May, when the plum rain season begins. Rainfall in Taiwan has been scant since last month, according to the bureau’s data, which show accumulated precipitation of 37.9mm in Taipei between Feb. 1 and March 17, compared with the usual average of 262mm for that period.
CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Two charged over docking
Evergreen Marine Corp president Wang Chung-jinn (王宗進) and a captain of a company ship were yesterday charged with violations of cross-strait laws after the vessel visited a shipyard in China illegally and received suspended indictments. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said Wang and Hsu Mu-ter (許木德), a captain of the company, were charged with violations of Regulations Governing the Relations between the People of the Taiwan Area and the People of the Mainland China Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例). However, because they admitted they had violated the regulations and expressed remorse, the district prosecutors’ office granted them a suspended indictment. The office said Wang and Hsu would be fined NT$150,000 and NT$100,000 respectively. Prosecutors said Taiwanese vessels are prohibited from docking at Chinese ports not on the cross-strait harbor opening list.
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