Taiwanese independence campaigners yesterday launched a drive to send letters and get-well cards to wish US President Donald Trump a speedy recovery from COVID-19.
At a rally in front of a post office across from the Executive Yuan in Taipei, the campaigners thanked the US for helping to protect the nation from China’s military provocations, which upset regional stability.
The event began with the mailing of a typed letter, along with an image of Trump and President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), to the White House.
Photo: Jason Pan, Taipei Times
Taiwan Republic Office director Chilly Chen (陳峻涵) said that the image was a reminder of Tsai’s telephone call to Trump four years earlier to congratulate him on his election win.
“In that historic telephone call, Trump referred to Tsai as ‘the President of Taiwan,’ and it was the first time that the nations’ presidents talked directly since breaking off diplomatic relations in 1979,” Chen said.
During Trump’s presidency, Washington passed the Taiwan Travel Act, as well as the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act, and submitted a bill for the Taiwan Defense Act, while US Representative Tom Tiffany last month introduced legislation calling for the US to re-establish formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Chen said.
“These developments are proof of improving ties, of the US and Taiwan moving toward closer relations,” Chen said. “We urge people to write letters, or just write a few words in a get-well card. But it is most important to denote Tsai as Taiwan’s president, to express clearly that Taiwan is an independent country and that Taiwanese have the courage and resolve to pick up arms to defend our homeland against Chinese military incursion.”
Pastor Ian Ke (柯怡政), representing the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, said that he supported the drive to send letters and cards to Trump and first lady Melania Trump, and to express the people’s strong desire for independence, to establish formal diplomatic ties and join the UN.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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