■Education
Teacher reprimanded
A teacher at a Taipei elementary school has been punished by the school authorities after he ordered his students to swallow pieces of aluminum foil, officials said yesterday. The teacher, only identified by his surname Liu, has received a reprimand by the Nanhu elementary school, but angry parents of the students threatened to sue him. The event happened last week when the teacher found an empty milk packet which was thrown in the garbage can without being flattened as required by school rules. When none of the 35 students was willing to own up to dumping the carton, the irritated teacher cut the foil pack into pieces measuring about one square centimeter in size and ordered the students to swallow a piece.
■ Cross-strait ties
SEF had 58 case requests
The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) has received requests to help solve 58 cases of Taiwan investors being detained or missing in China so far this year. Liao Yun-yuan (廖運源), director of SEF's department of economic and trade affairs, said yesterday that Taiwanese businessmen in China must pay special attention to their own safety whenever they leave their home or office, because there are dangers of being attacked or kidnapped by criminals, or illegally detained by police. He said that since 1991 the SEF has received requests to help solve 57 cases of murders; 73 cases of robbery, blackmail, and physical injury; 46 cases of kidnapping and illegal detention; 156 cases of detention due to suspected violation of law or regulations; and 97 cases of missing persons.
■ Diplomacy
French ties need boost
Chiou Jong-nan (邱榮男), new Taiwan representative to France, said on Sunday he is determined to further boost substantive Taiwan-French relations based on the principles of freedom, democracy and credibility. Chiou made the remarks at a cocktail reception organized by 10-plus overseas Chinese associations to welcome his return to Paris to serve as Taiwan's de facto ambassador to France in the absence of formal diplomatic ties. Chiou had been the Taiwan representative to France before he was appointed the nation's ambassador to Haiti in 1996. He returned to Taipei in 2000 to serve as vice minister of foreign affairs. "I'm pleased to be able to return to Paris to work after two years of service at home," Chiou told well-wishers. He said that although the current international situation is unfavorable for Taiwan's drive to cultivate diplomatic ties with other countries, there is still room for Taipei and Paris to expand their exchanges and cooperation.
■ Trade
EU to open offices
The EU will open trade offices in Taiwan before the end of January, Foreign Minister Eugene Chien (簡又新) said yesterday. "The European Union will open its trade office here around the end of January," he told a legislative session. Taiwan and the EU do not have diplomatic ties, but maintain close trade links. Taiwan is the EU's third-largest trading partner in Asia. Last year, the European Commission proposed opening a trade representative office ahead of Taiwan's admission to the WTO on Jan. 1. Speculation mounted that an Irish senior official with the European Commission is slated to serve as the EU's first trade representative to Taiwan when the office opens in Taipei next month. But Chien yesterday declined to comment on the nomination. He said this is a matter for the EU authority to announce.
Agencies
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