DIPLOMACY
Flotilla finishes visit
The navy ended a three-day public relations port call in the Dominican Republic yesterday. Personnel from the three-vessel Friendship Flotilla met with local military officials and political leaders, the Republic of China embassy said. A navy honor guard arrived at the port of Santo Domingo on Sunday and was greeted upon arrival by Ambassador Thomas Hou (侯平福), along with Dominican military and political figures, and Taiwanese expatriates, the embassy said. The flotilla’s visit was part of a worldwide tour to enhance diplomatic ties with the nation’s allies. The last time the navy visited the Dominican Republic was in 2008. The honor guard performed drills in the plaza of Santo Domingo’s National Theater on Sunday, followed by performances by a naval marching band and taekwondo team. The flotilla consists of the Lafayette-class frigate Wu Chang, the Cheng Kung-class frigate Cheng Kung and the fleet oiler Wu Yi.
CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Tourist’s body found
Police said yesterday that they had found the body of a Chinese tourist who went missing while visiting Yangmingshan National Park in suburban Taipei. The body of the man, believed to be about 70, was found in a valley in the 11,455-hectare park at about 10am. The cause of death has not been released pending the results of an autopsy. Police began a search a few days ago after being notified by a travel agency that the man had gone missing in the park. Meanwhile, officials said that speeding might have been the cause of a bus accident on Alishan Highway on Monday that slightly injured 20 Chinese tourists from Shanghai. An initial investigation found the tour bus driver failed to slow down on a downhill section of the road.
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