DIPLOMACY
Lions shelve Chinese plan
China’s attempt to force a change in Taiwan’s designation at the Lions Clubs International (LCI) has failed after members at a meeting shelved the proposal, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. At the meeting in Reykjavik on Saturday, China proposed that Taiwan’s designation in the organization be changed from “MD300 Taiwan” to “MD300 China Taiwan,” the ministry said. The LCI is one of the largest and most active volunteer institutions in the world. Upon learning about the proposal, the ministry immediately contacted MD300 Taiwan, and asked it to do its utmost at the meeting to safeguard Taiwan’s designation, ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said. Thanks to the efforts of Taiwan’s Lions members and their counterparts around the world, the proposal was put on hold, he said. Lee thanked LCI members for their support of Taiwan based on the principles of equal participation and dignity.
DIPLOMACY
Envoy asks for day off
Indonesian Economic and Trade Office in Taipei head Didi Sumedi has asked local employers to give Indonesian workers this Sunday off so that they can cast ballots in their country’s legislative and presidential elections. He also announced the locations of 34 polling stations to be set up around Taiwan. According to Indonesian law, citizens who are 17 years old or above are eligible to vote, including those who reside overseas. Overseas voters are to cast their ballots from today to Sunday, before the elections on Wednesday next week. There were about 269,000 Indonesian workers in Taiwan as of the end of January, according to Ministry of Labor statistics, making the country the biggest source of foreign workers in Taiwan.
TRAVEL
Japan bans animal products
The Japanese government has banned the import of animal products, the National African Swine Fever Response Center said on Friday, urging Taiwanese planning to visit Japan to follow local laws and regulations. The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries instituted the ban after a pork product imported by a Chinese tourist tested positive for African swine fever, the center said. The highly contagious viral disease is fatal to hogs, but is not known to be harmful to humans. People who do not declare animal products at Japanese customs could face a ¥1 million (US$8,950) fine or three years in prison, the center said. A majority of the travelers who were caught trying to import banned animal products were from China, followed by the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea and Taiwan, the Japanese Animal Quarantine Service said.
SOCIETY
Festival held in Chiayi
A traditional festival that dates back more than 200 years was held outside a Taoist temple in Chiayi City yesterday. The festival, which invites participants to ride a 12m bamboo swing frame, is believed to have originated during the reign of Qing emperor Kangxi (康熙). According to legend, the swing was built by locals as part of a ceremony to ask for blessings from Taoist deity Xuantian Shangdi (玄天上帝, “Emperor of the Mysterious Heaven”) and for an end to a plague affecting the area. The festival was held every leap year until 2008, when it became an annual event. It was also registered as an intangible cultural asset by the city’s cultural bureau in December 2008.
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