■ DEFENSE
Arms sale to proceed
The Obama administration will proceed with arms sales to Taiwan despite recent protests by China, a US official said on Tuesday. Speaking from Hawaii, American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Raymond Burghardt said that sales of arms to Taiwan were consistent with what White House officials have been saying was US President Barack Obama’s policy. “No one should be surprised when we move forward with them,” he said. Burghardt declined to say exactly when Obama would notify Congress of an arms sale. In the past week, Chinese officials and news organizations have expressed anger over reports that the Obama administration could notify Congress shortly of such arms sales. Notification is the final step in the process. US officials say China could break off military-to-military contacts with the US once notification is made as it did in October last year when the Bush administration sold Taiwan US$6.5 billion worth of weapons.
■ WEATHER
Cold air mass hits nation
A cold air mass from China sent temperatures falling through much of Taiwan yesterday and could push the mercury to below 10°C in northern and central areas this weekend, the Central Weather Bureau said. The cold air mass will envelop Taiwan completely beginning today, making the weather noticeably colder, and could linger over Taiwan until next week, a bureau forecaster said. Temperatures are expected to be about 18°C in the north and northeast, with lows of between 15°C and 16°C in central regions, between 22°C and 23°C in eastern regions and between 24°C and 25°C in the south and southeast.
■ IMMIGRATION
Tibetans on hunger strike
More than 30 Tibetan exiles in Taiwan have been on a hunger strike outside the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (MTAC) since late on Monday night to protest the commission not confirming their Tibetan status, which led to the National Immigration Agency’s (NIA) refusal to grant them residency. A total of 134 Tibetans living in Taiwan applied for residency earlier this year — 78 were granted residency while 56 were rejected because of insufficient proof of their status as Tibetans. The Tibetans who were denied residency asked whether the MTAC had double standards in assessing the proof of their Tibetan status. “How come some people received it, but others didn’t? There are even two brothers with the elder brother granted residency while the younger brother wasn’t,” Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association chairman Jamga said. “I suspect that maybe only people on good terms with MTAC officials can get it.” MTAC rebutted the accusation and said that the individuals whose application were rejected could apply again if they have new evidence to prove their Tibetan status.
■ SOCIETY
Hope’s the word
“Hope” (pan, 盼) has been voted the Chinese character of the year in Taiwan, with many people believing a sustained period of crisis and disaster is finally coming to an end, a survey showed yesterday. It replaced “chaos” (luan, 亂), the character considered most representative of last year, and reflected how the mood in Taiwan has changed from pessimism to cautious optimism, said the Chinese-language United Daily News, which co-organized the poll. “This year we chose ‘hope’ over ‘chaos,’ symbolizing that Taiwan has bottomed out and is moving toward the light,” the paper said.
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