■ Health
Flu vaccinations expanded
The Department of Health will expand targets for a government-funded flu vaccination program in light of the low vaccination rate this year, officials said yesterday. Starting tomorrow, the targets will be further expanded to cover all children up to three years old, adults aged 60 or over, people suffering from severe injuries or diseases, international airline crew members, hospital volunteer workers, community pharmacists, medical lab workers and school nurses, department officials said.
■ Environment
Kinmen bay to get facelift
The Executive Yuan has directed the Water Resources Agency under the Ministry of Economic Affairs to clean up the Gouyu Bay area of Kinmen, after the military stopped handling waste ammunition there earlier this year. The project is part of government efforts to respond to calls from New Party Legislator Wu Cheng-dian (吳成典) and Kinmen residents to improve the bay's landscape, better manage the environment and protect the island's beach ecology. The beautification project will integrate the resources and expertise of different agencies and aims to create a better coastal environment that is favorable to leisure development on the offshore island, said an official. The agency mapped out a plan for the improvement project after the Ministry of National Defense called a halt to its practice of exploding waste ammunition in the bay on Aug. 3.
■ Health
Illegal pesticides rife
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) claimed yesterday that the market is swamped with contraband pesticides and urged law enforcement agencies to step up their crackdown on the chemicals in order to safeguard public health. Lai made the remarks at a news conference, where he displayed 20 kinds of contraband pesticide he had purchased in the past three days to highlight that they are readily available and that law enforcement is lax in this regard. Tsao Tien-min (曹天民), president of an association on sustainable crop management, noted that annual pesticide consumption totals around NT$5 billion (US$151.51 million) in Taiwan and estimated that one-third of that amount was contraband.
■ Politics
Recall motion set for Friday
The third recall motion against President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will be put to a vote on Friday, the legislature's Procedure Committee decided yesterday. The pan-blue camp initiated the third recall after first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) and three presidential aides were indicted on corruption in connection with Chen's handling of his "state affairs fund." The legislature will have a two-day conference to review the third recall, even though Chen has refused to submit a written rebuttal once again. Pan-blue lawmakers ignored a call by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Chi-fang (蔡啟芳) to withdraw the latest motion. Tsai said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was embroiled in a similar scandal over the handling of his mayoral allowance fund. Meanwhile, a number of long-stalled bills, including the supplemental budget for partial funding of the purchase of three US major weapons, were again blocked from being put onto the legislative agenda.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
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