■ Health
Protesters block DOH doors
Over 100 protesters from the National Union of Nurses Association (NUNA) blocked the Department
of Health's doors yesterday morning, accusing the department of "trampling on the nursing profession" and Director-General
Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁)
of backtracking on his promises. According to NUNA chairwoman Yin
Jeo-chen (尹祚芊), Chen promised that a candidate recommended by NUNA would take charge of the department's new Bureau
of Nursing and Healthcare. Irritated by the appointment of Mary Huang (黃美娜)
as the bureau's new chief,
the association demanded
a meeting with Chen.
Shortly after Chen
met the association's representatives at about 11am and received their petition, the protesters dispersed.
■ Diplomacy
Australia visa pact signed
Young Taiwanese will be able to apply for working-holiday visas in Australia starting Nov. 1, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced yesterday. Taiwan's representative
to Australia, Timothy Yang (楊進添), and Australian Commerce and Industry Office Representative Frances Adamson signed
the working-holiday visa
pact in Taipei yesterday,
after a series of meetings
between officials from both governments. Australia has no official ties with Taipei, but is the second country
to make such a deal with Taiwan after New Zealand signed an agreement in February. Under the scheme, up to 1,000 Taiwanese between the ages of 18 to
30 will be able to travel
to Australia for a working-holiday stay of up to 12 months. The agreement was signed so that young people from both nations "will have opportunities to learn about each other's country's culture and society, which will substantially boost Taiwan and Australia's relations,"
the ministry said in a press release.
■ Culture
Report slams museum
The National Taiwan Museum has mismanaged
its collections, with many historical relics damaged, the Control Yuan has found. Following an investigation, the Control Yuan yesterday censured the museum and
its supervising agency, the Council for Cultural Affairs. The Control Yuan also wanted to impeach museum employees, but elected not to after it found that the museum's collections had not been compiled correctly in the first place. The Control Yuan investigators discovered that three of the museum's warehouses in
the Taipei area were in poor condition, with relics poorly cared for and some pottery items damaged. They also found that there was no record of how missing
relics were removed from warehouses and that some had simply been thrown away by mistake. Other items had been lent to other organizations but were never returned, such as a large drum that was lent to Taipei's Lungshan Temple in 1960.
■ Transportation
Car ownership jumps
The number of motor vehicles reached 6.26 million in the first half
of this year, at an average
of 27.7 per 100 people, according to the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission. A commission report released yesterday showed that more than 253,000 new motor vehicles were registered between January and
last month. The figure represents a 26.4 percent increase on the same period last year.
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