■ Society
English environment better
The nation's overall living environment for native English-speaking people made progress this year, according to results of a survey released by the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission. The survey, conducted by Shih Hsin University between Sept. 3 and Oct. 31, interviewed 1,098 foreigners living in Taiwan and 1,068 foreigners who were in Taiwan for a short stay. They were questioned about how satisfied they were with various aspects of life in Taiwan this year. The results show that the overall living environment for native English-speaking people improved by 12.3 percent over last year. Health services topped other areas, with a 17.5 percent improvement compared with last year, followed by shopping, with an improvement of 14.88 percent. The survey also showed that some of the general complaints included taxi drivers being unable to speak English and the lack of English-language information at bus stops.
■ Education
Illiteracy at 2.84 percent
Just over 510,000 people in Taiwan 15 years old and over are illiterate, representing 2.84 percent of the nation's total population as of the end of last year, an official with the Ministry of Education said. The official at the ministry's Social Education Department said an overwhelming majority of the illiterate are elderly citizens who grew up during Japanese colonial rule or the early years of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration. Noting that the nation's illiteracy rate remains higher than the internationally acceptable norm of 2 percent, the official said the ministry continues to promote various adult education programs to address this problem. The official said a new group of the illiterate is emerging: the foreign spouses of local citizens.
■ Foreign Affairs
Official to go to Burkina Faso
Judicial Yuan President Weng Yueh-sheng (翁岳生) will travel to Burkina Faso as a special envoy of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to attend the inauguration ceremony of the newly elected president Blaise Compaore next Tuesday. Burkina Faso held its third presidential election on Nov. 13 this year. Compaore, who is also Chairman of the Congress for Democracy and Progress, received more than 80 percent of the vote. He will thus remain as head of state for the next five years. Weng will leave for Burkina Faso today together with a nine-member delegation.
■ Society
Essay awards presented
A private foundation presented awards yesterday for the 16 best essays in a contest held to increase local people's understanding and knowledge of immigrant culture and life in Taiwan. The 16 essays will be compiled into a book in an effort to raise public awareness of the issues concerning foreign spouses of Taiwan nationals, said Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋), director-in-chief of the New World Cultural and Educational Foundation. There are currently over 320,000 foreign spouses of Taiwan citizens, with the new arrivals forming Taiwan's "fifth largest ethnic group," according to Lee, with the other four being Aborigines, Hakka, Hoklo settlers from southern China who arrived in Taiwan during the 16th century and Chinese who came to Taiwan when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government fled here in 1949. He called the five groups "assets" of the country in terms of its international competitiveness and progress.
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