■ Diplomacy
Volunteers begin work
A volunteer group organized by the Taiwan Roots Medical Peace Corps has kicked off a 10-day tour providing free medical service in Gambia, a spokesman for the Taipei-based charity said yesterday. The 21-member group, headed by corps president Liu Chi-chun (劉啟群), arrived in Banjul, Gambia's capital, early yesterday, the spokes-man said, adding that the volunteers will begin pro-viding free medical service after meeting with Gambian Health Minister Yankuba Kassama later in the day. Gambia is a malaria-stricken area and has limited medical facilities and professional health care staff. During its 10-day tour, the volunteers will offer free medical services in townships near Banjul as well as remote villages.
■ Agriculture
Visiting farmers see south
A group of farmers from the Asian Rural Manpower Development Organization visited the Kaohsiung County Government yester-day to see how the govern-ment is helping farmers cushion the impact after Taiwan joined the WTO. The farmers from Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, Thailand, Japan, Nepal and Cambodia met with Kaohsiung Magistrate Yang Chiu-hsin (楊秋興). Yang said that there are 250,000 farmers in the county and that the govern-ment has taken steps to help farmers grow such high-value fruits as bananas, pineapples, wax apples, mangoes and litchis for export. The government also helps farmers develop their domestic and foreign markets.
■ Education
Li Yuan-zu speaks in Seoul
Former vice president Li Yuan-zu (李元簇) yesterday expressed hope that a meeting of academics from Taiwan and South Korea can help strengthen substantial ties and mutual under-standing between the two countries. Li, who is now senior adviser to the presi-dent and adviser of the Taiwan-South Korean Culture Foundation, made the remarks in a speech delivered at the annual academic convention, which is being held in Seoul. This year's meeting focuses on education, problems in being admitted to universities, the cultivation of teachers and education on environmental protection.
■ Cross-strait ties
Chorus visits Xiamen
The Kinmen Children's Chorus headed for Xiamen yesterday aboard a ferry boat to participate in a children's music camp, the Kinmen Education Bureau said. The chorus' visit marked the first cross-strait cultural exchange via the "three small links" since the containment of SARS, bureau Director Lu Chih-huei (盧志輝) said. The chorus, which took part in a music contest in Xiamen last August, will participate in a children's music summer camp in Quanzhou until Friday, Lu said. The county government also plans to invite elementary and junior-high basketball teams from Xiamen to a competition later this year, Lu said.
■ Crime
Suspected smuggler nabbed
A 24-year-old Taiwanese woman was arrested at CKS International Airport for trying to smuggle in 2.32kg of heroin from Thailand. Aviation police said that X-rays revealed suspicious cans of hair rinse in her luggage. The woman said that she had been asked by a friend to travel to Thailand for a holiday and bring back the hair rinse. She was turned over to the Taoyuan Prosecutors' Office after she was arraigned.
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
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
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