■ Cross-strait Ties
PFP's Tsai off to China
People First Party (PFP) Legislator Tsai Shen-chia (蔡勝佳) left yesterday on an individual trip to China to give a speech on agriculture. Speaking to reporters before his departure, Tsai, who will head the delegation the PFP legislative caucus plans to send to China next week, said he would not be going to Beijing on this trip and would only be talking about agriculture. Tsai is also chairman of the Tainan County Farmers' Association. However, during a press conference later in the day, the PFP's legislative caucus emphasized that Tsai is representing the party on this trip. The motivation of his trip is to work for Taiwan's farmers, said PFP Legislator Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄). Liu said the caucus is fully supportive of Tsai and his efforts.
■ Aid
Medical group departs
A four-member medical mission has traveled to Indonesia to help with post-earthquake relief work, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said yesterday. The group will offer medical services to survivors of the March 29 earthquake that struck off Sumatra, the official said. According to the official, the temblor resulted in the death or injury of more than 1,000 people, with Nias bearing the brunt of devastation. Out of humanitarian concern, the government has donated US$50,000 in cash and a large number of body bags to the Indonesian government, the official said, adding that the ministry has also told the representative office in Jakarta to buy US$10,000 worth of rice to help feed the quake survivors.
■ Labor
Employees unhappy with pay
Most employees earn less than NT$400,000 (US$12,700) per year and 91 percent of them and dissatisfied with their pay, according to the results of a poll made public yesterday. Some 26.7 percent of the respondents said that they earn an annual salary of between NT$390,000 and NT$300,000, while 24.8 percent and 22.1 percent claimed that they receive an annual salary less than NT$200,000 and between NT$200,000 and NT$290,000, respectively, according to the results of the survey carried out by the executive search Web site www.1111.com.tw. Only 1.43 percent of employees enjoy an annual salary of more than NT$1 million, making a per-capita salary of NT$342,300 per year, according to the poll. Employees aged between 31 and 35 get an annual salary of NT$448,100 on average, while those aged between 30 and 26 receive an average of NT$344,100. The 25-21 age group earn an average annual salary of NT$266,800. Some 82 percent of employees said that they are not satisfied with their pay, with only 6.6 percent satisfied with their earnings. About 91 percent dream of enjoying an annual salary of over NT$1 million, and those already achieving the goal said that it took them 5.09 years to reach that point.
■ Culture
Chinese explorer honored
A private group is organizing activities to observe the 600th anniversary of the naval expeditions led by Ming dynasty explorer Zheng He (鄭和). The Chinese Zheng He Society, founded by Liu Tah-tsai (劉達材), a retired admiral, with former minister of education Wu Jin (吳京) as honorary chairman, will host lectures and international symposiums and other activities to mark Cheng Ho's first naval voyage -- aimed at increasing the prestige of the emperor of the Ming dynasty -- in 1405. Taipei City Councilor Pan Huai-tsung (潘懷宗) said Wu will give a lecture on Cheng at the Taipei City Council tomorrow.
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