■ Diplomacy
Singapore ties strong: MND
Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (李傑) yesterday expressed the hope that military cooperation between Taiwan and Singapore will continue despite a recent diplomatic row. Taiwan has for years helped Singapore train its soldiers under the "Starlight Project." Although Lee declined to comment on the row triggered by Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山), he said he hopes "Singapore will not be influenced" in future cooperation regarding the "Starlight Project." Chen on Monday called Singapore a nation "no bigger than a piece of snot" and criticized the authorities of the city-state of "holding China's balls" after Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo (楊榮文) had spoken out against campaigns seeking membership for Taiwan at the UN. "Holding another's testicles" is a euphemism in Taiwan meaning to curry favor with someone.
■ Health
Hepatitis carriers defended
In an effort to protect hepatitis B carriers' right to work, Taipei City's Bureau of Health will fine the Civil Aeronautics Administration if the agency fails to lift a measure that prohibits the hiring of hepatitis B virus carriers. The administration is recruiting 137 firefighters for the country's airports. Over 600 applicants are scheduled to take written and physical tests in the middle of this month. However, those applicants diagnosed with hepatitis B during a health check will be disqualified. "Hepatitis B is transmitted only through blood transfusion and sexual contact," said Shih Wen-yi (施文儀), deputy director-general of the Center for Disease Control. "Hepatitis B virus carriers pose no danger in a working environment." According to Article 12 of the Communicable Disease Prevention Law (傳染病 防治法), the bureau can fine the administration up to NT$150,000 if it fails to cancel the regulation within 15 days.
■ Society
`English corner' set up
The group Core & Corner yesterday introduced a new way of English learning by holding topical meetings at coffee shops, restaurants and corporate cafeterias. The program, known as English corner, aims to bring people together to practice their English by meeting with native English speakers. Taiwanese nationals who speak fluent English as well as those who wish to perfect their English-speaking skills are encouraged to join in. Practice sessions will be broken down by topics such as wine-tasting, gourmet cooking and scuba diving.
■ Diplomacy
Gambians start classes
Taiwan is helping the Gambia train specialists in crude oil exploration and other areas of the petroleum industry by offering university courses to 25 Gambian citizens. A ceremony marking the beginning of the first semester of the Gambian Petroleum Class at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology's department of materials and resources engineering was held on campus yesterday. Addressing the ceremony, Chang Pei-chi (張北齊), director-general of the foreign ministry's African Affairs Department, said that the Gambian government attaches great importance to the students receiving an education in Taiwan. Gambian Vice President Isatou Njie-Saidy met with the students at a reception prior to their recent departure for Taiwan, Chang said. Ministry officials said the students were in a scholarship program set up last month to promote international exchanges.
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