Practical interaction with the Holy See is beneficial to sustaining Taiwan’s diplomatic relations, Minister Without Portfolio Audrey Tang (唐鳳) said on Tuesday, following her introduction on Saturday of the nation’s democratic progress at a technology conference at the Vatican.
The Artificial Intelligence, Monopoly, Privacy and Democracy conference was organized by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and attended by representatives from more than 10 nations, including the US, Germany, Israel, Italy and Brazil.
Tang promotes “open government” and was invited to serve as the minister responsible for digital policies in October 2016.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Opening her speech with Taiwanese values as touted by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Tang spoke about how technology serves as a driving force for the nation’s democratic development.
Tang did not criticize China, but referred to the 2014 Sunflower movement as “Occupy Parliament” to connect the movement with worldwide occupation protests against political and economic inequality.
She also addressed how domestically developed online programs, such as vTaiwan and g0v.tw, facilitated policy negotiations by bridging the gaps between governmental agencies, businesses and the public.
Taiwanese society is no longer dominated by conflicting values, but is now able to contain the expressions of people with diversified values, Tang told reporters before attending a legislative session in Taipei on Tuesday.
Asked if she had encountered any pressure from Beijing before attending the conference, Tang said her speech was about sustainable development, which is not particularly controversial and is a global issue that needs joint contributions.
Any practical interactions or conversations are beneficial to maintaining diplomatic relations between Taiwan and the Vatican, she said, when asked whether relations would be affected by the ally’s increasing interaction with China.
Additional reporting by CNA
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