DEFENSE
Tsai names vice minister
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has appointed Po Hung-hui (柏鴻輝), deputy chief executive officer of the Institute for National Defense Security Research, as the new vice defense minister in charge of policy at the Ministry of National Defense. Po, a retired air force lieutenant general, graduated from the Republic of China Air Force Academy in 1981 and the Air Command and Staff College of National Defense University in 1994, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said in a statement on Friday. He has served as the head of Taiwan’s defense mission in the US, director of the Political Warfare Office at the Air Force Command, chief of the general staff of the Air Force Command, and administrative deputy minister at the ministry, Lo said. Po had been serving at the institute since he retired from the military in 2018, Lo added.
HEALTH
Vaccine parity for migrants
Migrant workers are to receive the same treatment as Taiwanese in the government’s COVID-19 vaccination program, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Joanne Ou (歐江安) said on Friday. The representative offices of Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam issued a joint appeal on Tuesday last week for migrant workers to be added to the priority list of people to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Ou said the ministry discussed the situation with the Central Epidemic Command Center on Friday last week. “We were told that migrant workers are not treated differently from Taiwanese nationals in principle,” she said, adding that the ministry would arrange for the representatives of the four countries and health officials to discuss the issue.
DIPLOMACY
Haiti ‘unlikely’ to switch ties
Ties between Taiwan and Haiti would remain solid, despite the political turmoil in Haiti following the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise, a former Taiwanese ambassador to the Caribbean nation said. Asked whether Haiti could switch allegiance to China after the assassination on Wednesday, Yang Cheng-ta (楊承達), ambassador to Haiti from 2005 to 2008, said he believed that the interim government’s priority would be to bring stability to the country. Yang said he does not believe Beijing would try to poach Taiwan’s diplomatic ally amid the chaos that Haiti is in. Even if the Chinese government did succeed in lobbying the interim government to ditch Taipei, the question is whether the new Haitian government would follow through with that decision, he added. Most importantly, Yang said that relations between Taiwan and Haiti have remained strong for years, and all bilateral cooperation programs are running smoothly.
ENVIRONMENT
Wild animal rescues drop
The number of wild animals being rescued has dropped to a record low following the implementation of a level 3 COVID-19 alert, a nonprofit veterinary clinic affiliated with the Wild Bird Society of Taoyuan said. Compared with the 315 animal rescue calls from April 18 to May 18, the number of calls dropped by 81 to 234 from May 19 to the end of last month, the clinic said. The number of calls has dropped by more than 100 from the same period in previous years, it said. Veterinarian Wu Chia-ying (吳珈瑩) said most callers report roadkill, and with traffic reduced due to the alert, the number of roadkill calls has also decreased.
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