DIPLOMACY
William Lai departs for US
Vice president-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Sunday departed Taiwan for the US to attend the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual gathering of political and religious leaders in Washington. The event, which is organized by US-based Christian organization The Fellowship, is scheduled for tomorrow and Thursday, and US President Donald Trump is expected to attend. In a statement issued yesterday, Lai’s office said that he is attending the National Prayer Breakfast in an individual capacity and would return to Taiwan on Sunday. During the trip, Lai is to meet with members of think tanks and overseas Taiwanese organizations, and make a brief stop in New York, his office said. Ambassadors are typically invited to the annual event. Taiwanese officials who have attended in the past include Representative to the US Stanley Kao (高碩泰), former representative to the US King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) and former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).
DIPLOMACY
MOFA seeks FedEx fix
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) has instructed its representative office in Atlanta, Georgia, to demand a correction from delivery services provider FedEx over its “inappropriate” designation of Taiwan as “Taiwan, China” on its Web site. “The company has not concretely responded to us yet, but the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Atlanta will continue to negotiate with FedEx to correct the erroneous designation,” ministry spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) said on Saturday. Several netizens noticed on Friday that FedEx was now referring to Taiwan as “Taiwan, China” on its drop-down menu in the sender section and on its language menu at the bottom of the Web site. One netizen wrote on an Internet forum that he used the FedEx Web site early last month and the designation was “Taiwan” at the time. At press time last night, the designation was still “Taiwan, China” on the FedEx Web site.
HEALTH
H1N1 is greater risk: CDC
While attention is focused on the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, the influenza virus A (H1N1) is posing a greater threat after it claimed 13 lives in Taiwan in just one week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The CDC said that 116,705 people sought medical treatment for flu-like symptoms at hospitals nationwide last week, including 61 confirmed flu cases. The H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, is the main source of flu infections in residential communities, accounting for 84.5 percent, the CDC said. From Oct. 1 last year through Jan. 25, there were 771 serious infections mainly caused by the H1N1 virus, including 56 flu-related deaths, CDC data showed.
ENTERTAINMENT
Philippine film to be shown
Record-breaking romantic drama Hello, Love, Goodbye is to be the first Philippine film ever to be screened at VieShow Cinemas on Valentine’s Day, a statement released by entertainment group ABS-CBN said. The highest-grossing Philippine film of all time is to be subtitled in Chinese for local viewers during special screenings at selected VieShow Cinemas starting on Feb. 14, the statement said. The screenings are to take place at VieShow Cinemas Kaoshiung FE21, VieShow Cinemas Tainan FE21, VieShow Cinemas Taichung Top City, VieShow Cinemas Hsinchu FE21, VieShow Cinemas Taoyuan Tonlin, VieShow Cinemas Linkou Mitsui Outlet Park, VieShow Cinemas Banciao Mega City and VieShow Cinemas Taipei Qsquare.
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
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
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