■ Mongolians offered training
Fifteen Mongolian businesspeople will arrive later this month for a two-week training course under the joint auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), ministry sources reported yesterday. The 15 Mongolians, all owners or executive managers of small or medium-sized enterprises, will be in Taipei from Nov. 24 to Dec. 6 to receive training sponsored by the International Cooperation and Develop-ment Fund, according to Lin Chin-chung (林進忠), deputy director of the ministry's Department of West Asian Affairs. They will attend lectures on business and financial management, creativity, as well as research and development.
■ Cross-strait ties
TSU protests compensation
The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislative caucus is opposed to the plan to provide compensation to the families of drowned illegal Chinese immigrants, saying that there is no need to do so. On Tuesday, the Taichung High Administrative Court ruled that the Miaoli Prosecutor's Office should provide compensation to the families of eight Chinese women who were thrown overboard by smugglers off Tunghsiao, Miaoli, in August last year, after a coast guard cutter approached the smugglers' boat. Noting that illegal immigrants are given good treatment in detention centers if they are caught, TSU whip Huang Chung-yuan (黃宗源) said providing such compensation was tantamount to encouraging illegal immigration.
■ Earthquake
Tremor rocks northeast
An earthquake measuring 6 on the Richter scale shook the northeast yesterday causing buildings to sway in Taipei, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, officials said. It was the third strong tremor this week. A 6.7-magnitude earthquake struck late on Monday, followed by a 5.5 tremor on Wednesday. The epicenter of yesterday's quake, which struck at 10:16am, was about 47km southeast of Ilan County, at a depth of 14km, the Central Weather Bureau said.
■ Education
Pluralistic society promoted
The Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) yesterday enlisted foreign representative offices to help ensure that a pluralistic culture can take root in this country. Tu made the appeal when he met with more than a score of representatives from foreign missions at a seminar on the establishment of a pluralistic culture society. The minister noted that Taiwan was originally a pluralistic society, but Chinese influence since the Qing dynasty created a "single culture mentality."
■ Diplomacy
Ex-Indian minister in town
Former Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes sees cross-strait disputes basically as political issues that need to be solved through dialogue. He said India has no role to play in this process. Fernandes, who arrived in Taipei yesterday for a three-day visit, said that any discussion of military cooperation between India and Taiwan is "not on the agenda," dispelling Beijing's fears that his visit will lead to some sort of strategic cooperation between Taipei and New Dehli. Although Fernandes stepped down from his Cabinet post in May, he remains the leader of the Janta Dal (United) Party. He is in Taipei to attend the India-Japan-Taiwan Trialogue Conference organized by Taiwan Thinktank which is to be held today.
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