WILDLIFE
Conservation efforts praised
BirdLife International is set to grant Taiwan an award later this month in recognition of its efforts to protect the black-faced spoonbill, an endangered species that spends winter on the island, a local wildlife protection group said yesterday. It will be the first time the nation has received such an honor from the global conservation community, Chinese Wild Bird Federation chairman Lin Shih-chung (林世忠) said, adding that the global population of black-faced spoonbills has risen from 300 to nearly 3,000 over the past 20 years. Meanwhile, the Forestry Bureau said the central government has allocated NT$19 million (US$639,000) since 1993 for a wide range of conservation projects for black-faced spoonbills, adding that a program was launched last year, which uses satellite and wireless transmitters to track the birds’ migration.
SOCIETY
Military fair starts today
An event that exhibits military equipment and allows the public to experience military life will start today in Taipei to promote an upcoming television program jointly produced by the Discovery Channel and Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. The event, to run until June 18 at National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, will feature tanks, armored cars, combat rubber boats, Humvees and other military equipment, as well as wartime military antiques, the Discovery Channel said. Taiwan’s special forces and frogmen will also give a display of their combat skills. The Discovery Channel plans to air a program on Tuesday that documents the rigorous training regimens of the nation’s Marine Corps Amphibious Reconnaissance, naval underwater operation unit and Army Rangers. The program will be broadcast in three parts on Tuesday, June 18 and June 25.
DIPLOMACY
Delegation to visit China
Former National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起) is to join a delegation headed by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Honorary Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) that is scheduled to visit China on Wednesday. Wu is to meet on Thursday with Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping (習近平), who is also China’s president. Su, who served as NSC secretary-general between 2008 and 2010, and who was once considered a core official on cross-strait policy under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, said he “has not been to China for five years” and that he was looking forward to the trip. Su, currently chairman of the Taipei Forum Foundation, a local think tank, added that he has not been given any specific mission for the visit and will engage in no personal activities.
DIPLOMACY
MOFA stands firm on islands
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) reiterated yesterday that the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) and their surrounding waters are part of the territory of the Republic of China. When proposing an East China Sea peace initiative in August last year, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) urged concerned parties to put aside territorial disputes over the islands and jointly develop resources in the region, ministry spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) said. During an interview with Japan’s Kyodo News on Thursday, Ma proposed three-way talks with China and Japan to discuss issues related to the development of resources in the East China Sea, while repeating his call for the parties to shelve the territorial dispute. Taiwan, Japan and China all claim sovereignty over the Diaoyutais, which are known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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