DIPLOMACY
Minister to visit Vatican
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has designated Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) as his envoy to attend tomorrow’s beatification ceremony of pope Paul VI at the Vatican. The ministry said in a statement yesterday that Lin and his delegation to the Holy See were to leave Taiwan today, attend the ceremony tomorrow and return home on Wednesday. Lin’s visit is expected to boost bilateral exchanges and friendship, the statement said. Pope Paul VI was elected on June 21, 1963, and died on Aug. 6, 1978. He is to be beatified after Pope Francis approved a miracle credited to the intercession of Paul VI, putting Paul VI one step away from sainthood. The Vatican is Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in Europe. There have been repeated rumors that the Vatican is interested in setting up formal ties with the People’s Republic of China, which would likely mean an end to diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
DIPLOMACY
Shrine visits ‘regrettable’
Taiwan said yesterday that a visit by Japanese ministers to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo earlier in the day was regrettable and would not contribute to regional development. In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it hoped that Japanese politicians would learn from history and be more sensitive to the pain and sorrow of the nations that suffered as a result of Japan’s actions during War World II. The lawmakers’ visit to Yasukuni Shrine, where more than 30,000 Taiwanese are also honored, has caused concern among other countries in the region and made them ill at ease, the ministry said. “It is regrettable” and does not help the region’s development, it said. Cabinet members and more than 100 parliamentarians visited the shrine.
ECONOMY
APEC envoy, agenda set
Taiwan has confirmed that Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) is to attend the annual APEC financial summit slated for Tuesday and Wednesday in Beijing. Chang is to head a delegation including Deputy Finance Minister Chang Fan (張璠) and officials from the Financial Supervisory Commission, the National Treasury Administration and the Taxation Administration, the ministry said yesterday. Issues to be discussed at the Finance Ministers Meeting, part of the annual APEC economic leaders’ meeting, include global and regional economic prospects, infrastructure investment and loan cooperation, structural adjustment-incurred financial and tax reforms and financial services, the ministry said. In Beijing, Chang is to report on Taiwan’s economic outlook, tax reform policies and plans to encourage businesses to join public construction projects, it said.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Tamsui bridge project starts
A project to build a new bridge over the Tamsui River in New Taipei City got off the ground yesterday, the city government said. Designed to span the estuary of the Tamsui River, the Danjiang bridge is to connect the city’s Tamsui (淡水) and Bali (八里) districts, the city’s Transportation Department said. It is the hope of the city government that work will be completed earlier than planned so it can be open to traffic in 2019, New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) said in a ceremony. The 6km long, 44m wide bridge is designed to accommodate a planned light rail line between Tamsui and Bali, the department said. At present, the two districts are mainly linked by the Guandu Bridge, which is about 10km away.
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