■ Diplomacy
Things with Chad not bad
Relations between Taiwan and Chad are solid, and all cooperation projects are proceeding according to schedule, an official of Taiwan's embassy in Chad said yesterday. The official, surnamed Hu, said that Taiwan's ambassador, Cheng Shin (鄭欣), is in France for treatment of an illness and could not respond in person to media reports that bilateral relations are on the rocks after Chad was denied a huge amount of cash aid. Hu dismissed the reports as "unfounded" and added that bilateral relations are solid. Meanwhile, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Chad did ask Taiwan to assist in the renewing of electricity facilities, although there was no unreasonable request for a "huge amount of financial assistance" and it is unlikely that the two nations "are on the verge of severing diplomatic relations." Anna Kao (高安), deputy director of the Department of Information and Cultural Affairs, said that cooperation projects between Taiwan and its allies are based mainly on improving the infrastructure of allies and that both sides will carefully assess such projects.
■ Senior Citizens
Caregiving a growth industry
With the graying of the nation's population, the caregiving sector will expand quickly, the Council for Economic Planning and Development said yesterday. The council said that it is estimated that the number of people aged 65 or over totaled around 1.88 million last year, accounting for 9 percent of the population, and that judging from current trends, the elderly will make up 14 percent of the population by 2020. Only in Japan is the elderly population increasing faster than in Taiwan, the council said. The council said that although a few businesses in Taiwan's private sector have invested in the construction of communities for the elderly, the norm will still be for old people to live in their own houses or communities, so the demand for home caregivers will be high.
■ Child Welfare
Delegation in Britain
A Taiwanese delegation is on an eight-day visit to Britain to learn from British experiences in protecting children and adolescents from online crime. The delegation, composed of government officials, scholars and children's welfare promoters, is headed by Vice Minister of Education Fan Hsun-lu (范巽綠). Over the past six days, the delegation has visited the British Home Office, Scotland Yard and many other agencies to study Britain's measures for controlling child pornography on the Internet and protecting youngsters and teenagers from sex crimes as well as promoting children's welfare and rights. Fan said that Taiwan has much to learn from Britain.
■ Tourism
Package deals offered
In line with the government's all-out drive to lure tourists, China Airlines (CAL) has launched new package tours for foreign visitors, focusing on backpackers, a spokesman for Taiwan's largest carrier said yesterday. The Dynasty Package Discovering Taiwan promotion -- which features 12 routes and six themes including hot springs, national parks, beaches, night markets, monuments and landscape -- will allow participants to fully experience the country's natural beauty and rich culture, the spokesman said. Acting on recommendation by the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, CAL will first operate five of the 12 routes.
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