DIPLOMACY
Tsai aims for better UK ties
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday expressed hope for stronger ties with the UK at a meeting with members of the British Parliament. The 11-member delegation was led by Andrew Rosindell, vice chairman of the British-Taiwanese All-Party Parliamentary Group. Taiwan hopes to cooperate with the UK in areas such as “green” technology, national defense development, smart machines, agriculture, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, Tsai said, adding that the nation would clear all possible investment hurdles to encourage partnerships with the UK. The delegation’s seven-day visit, which ends tomorrow, is aimed at giving the lawmakers a better understanding of the nation’s political and economic developments, innovative industries, diplomatic relations and cross-strait relations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
CRIME
Suspects deported to China
Indonesia yesterday deported to China 143 Taiwanese and Chinese fraud suspects who were arrested during a crackdown late last month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Expressing “serious concern” over the case, the ministry urged the Indonesian government to protect the rights of Taiwanese. Citing information obtained by Taiwanese representative offices in Jakarta and Surabaya, the ministry said that Indonesian police, in cooperation with China, apprehended the 143 telecom fraud suspects, including 22 Taiwanese, during raids in Jakarta, Surabaya, Bali and Batam on Saturday last week. Upon learning of the incident, the ministry ordered Taiwanese diplomats to make every effort to ask Indonesian authorities to send the Taiwanese suspects to Taiwan to face justice. However, Jakarta refused to provide Taiwan with further information on the case, saying it was China that offered the information to help break the case, the ministry said.
SOCIETY
Taichung beats Kaohsiung
Taichung’s population has exceeded that of Kaohsiung for the first time, making it the second-largest city in the nation after New Taipei City, Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said on Wednesday. As of late last month, Taichung had a population of 2,778,182, which is 309 more than Kaohsiung’s, Ministry of the Interior statistics showed. Lin said it is a good time to invest in Taichung, given the population growth, a city development plan that has already been approved by the ministry and the inclusion of a light rail construction project under the central government’s infrastructure plan. Taichung will also relax its standards for evaluating investment projects and offer more investment incentives, the mayor said.
POLITICS
Think tanks to hold forums
Taiwan ThinkTank and Washington-based Global Taiwan Institute are to hold an international forum on Aug. 18, as part of an effort to promote more frequent cooperation between Taiwanese and US think tanks, with the objective of developing proposals on related government policies. Titled “Developing a New Framework for Taiwan-US Relations under Changing Dynamics in the Asia-Pacific,” the forum will bring together academics and experts from Taiwan and the US, as well as former US government officials, Taiwan ThinkTank said. Another Taipei-based think tank, the Prospect Foundation, is to hold a forum to discuss security affairs in the Asia-Pacific region on Sunday in Taipei, with former US vice president Dick Cheney as the featured speaker.
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