NATIONAL DEFENSE
MND defends frigate sale
US arms sales to Taiwan play an important role in Taiwan’s defense due to the military threat from China, Ministry of National Defense (MND) spokesperson Major General David Lo (羅紹和) said yesterday in response to protests by China against a US bill for the sale of military frigates to Taiwan. In line with the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and the “six assurances,” US arms sales to Taiwan help maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, Lo said. The goal of the weapons procurement is to bolster Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, not to engage in a military buildup race against China, he said. Luo said Beijing has not renounced the use of force against Taiwan, adding that US arms sales to Taiwan are important and necessary. China on Sunday urged the US to block the bill, saying that arms sales to Taiwan interfere with China’s internal affairs and that China is firmly opposed to the bill. China’s protest came after the US Senate approved a bill last week authorizing the sale of four Perry-class frigates to Taiwan, a transfer expected to enhance Taiwan’s defensive capability by replacing its aging fleet of Knox-class frigates.
HEALTH
Smoking rate falls
The smoking rate for adults in Taiwan dropped to 18 percent last year — the lowest level since 1990 — Health Promotion Administration Director-General Chiou Shu-ti (邱淑媞) said yesterday. The smoking rate for adults in 1990 was 32.5 percent, Chiou said, attributing the drop in ensuing years to measures taken by the government to encourage smokers to quit tobacco usage since the enforcement of the Tobacco Hazards Prevention Act (菸害防制法) in 1997. Over the past two decades, regulations have been revised to make them tighter on smoking in public places, while tobacco taxes have been raised as part of the efforts to discourage people from smoking, Chiou said. Anti-smoking campaigns on college campuses have borne fruit, the administration said, citing official statistics that show the smoking rate among high-school students dropped from 14.1 percent in 2012 to 11.9 percent last year. The peak was at 15.2 percent in 2005, the data showed. The statistics also showed that the smoking rate among junior-high school students stood at 5.2 percent last year, lower than the 6.7 percent recorded the previous year. The highest level of 8 percent was registered in 2010.
REAL ESTATE
Property sales to hit low
Real-estate transactions in Taipei and neighboring New Taipei City could fall to their lowest point in 23 years amid lingering concerns that the government plans to come up with measures to cap the local property market, Yung Ching Realty Group (永慶房屋) said yesterday. Yung Ching, one of Taiwan’s largest property sales agencies, said that the Nov. 29 elections served as an significant influence in cautious sentiment amid perceived political uncertainty. According to Yung Ching’s statistics, transactions of homes, shops and offices in Taipei for the first 11 months of the year fell 19.6 percent from a year earlier to end at 28,968 units. In New Taipei City, transactions of residential and commercial properties for the 11-month period dropped 24.6 percent from a year ago to 54,974 units, the data showed. Huang Shu-wei (黃舒衛), manager of Yung Ching’s market research center, said that based on sales data for the 11 months, real-estate transactions might reach a total of just 32,000 units in Taipei and 60,000 units in New Taipei City, the lowest levels since 2001.
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