■ Sports
Foundation to be established
The Kaohsiung City Government is planning to establish a 2009 World Games foundation to help promote the city, officials of the southern Taiwan port city said yesterday. The officials said that after Kaohsiung won its bid to stage the World Games in 2009, the city government has been preparing for the games, hoping to enhance the profile of Taiwan and Kaohsiung through the sponsorship of the games. The city government has commissioned commercial and city image ads and other brochures to advertise to the world that the games will be staged there. The foundation is expected to be established Jan. 15 with initial funding of NT$5 million (US$156,250).
■ Disaster Aid
Taiwan plans more help
Taiwan is planning to help countries affected by the Dec. 26 tsunami disaster to build health centers in addition to providing them with emergency aid, Center for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Kuo Hsu-sung (郭旭崧) said yesterday. Kuo said a long-term plan was necessary because a lot of infrastructure in the tsunami-hit areas has been destroyed. Besides offering US$50 million in relief for the affected countries, Taiwan has also sent medical teams to some of the worst-hit countries. Also yesterday, the Department of Health announced that it will donate 10 shipments of emergency medical supplies to the World Health Organization for delivery to the disaster areas.
■ Events
Hispanists to hold meeting
The fifth meeting of the Asian Association of Hispanists will be held Friday and Saturday at Tamkang University in suburban Taipei, organizers said yesterday. Around 100 hispanists from home and abroad, including Spain, Argentina, Chile, Germany, Japan, China, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and the US will take part in the conference, with its theme centering on hispanist studies and globalization, according to university officials. Participants will discuss cultural, language and historical problems for worldwide hispanists arising from globalization and possible countermeasures in a gathering that will be open to the public, they said. The Asian Association of Hispanists was set up in 1985 in Seoul. It has held three meetings in Seoul, Manila and Tokyo.
■ Diplomacy
Ambassador quits post
Relations between Taiwan and Haiti are solid, outgoing Taiwan Ambassador Hsieh Hsin-ping (謝新平) said yesterday. Hsieh, who is scheduled to return to Taipei to work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs later this month, said now is a good time for Taiwan to change its ambassador to Haiti because bilateral relations are in good shape. In a telephone interview with the Central News Agency, Hsieh said he has assured the Haitian government that Taiwan will always be Haiti's best friend and will do its utmost to help the Caribbean country resolve problems and promote national development. Hsieh's successor, Yang Cheng-ta (楊承達), is scheduled to arrive in Haiti late this month to assume his new post. Hsieh said he believes that Taiwan-Haiti relations will be further expanded on the basis of current foundations after Yang assumes office. Hsieh asked for a job transfer last May because he has been suffering from a skin allergy. After a half-year wait, the foreign ministry has finally agreed to his request.
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