■ FOOD
Beef noodle cook-off returns
The 2007 Taipei International Beef Noodle Festival was launched yesterday and will run through Nov. 4. The festival has made Taipei the world capital of beef noodles, promoted business opportunities and enriched the imagery of Taipei, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said yesterday at the opening ceremony. The festival is once again sponsoring an online vote for the best beef noodle shop in the city, but this year it has also invited competitors from England, the US, South Africa and Russia to join the cookout. Taxi drivers will also be asked to recommend their favorite shops, which may not be well-known by the public.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
■ FOOD
Canadian firms in link-up
Taiwanese and Canadian biotechnology firms exchanged data on "functional food and nutraceuticals" and looked for potential partners in the rapidly growing sector in a videoconference yesterday. Almost 80 representatives from local firms attended the conference, which was organized by the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei. Seven Canadian firms made presentations in the videoconference to seek local partners. Canada enjoys a leading position in the "functional food and nutraceuticals" industry, which has more than 300 companies and a domestic market of C$6.6 billion (US$6.24 billion) annually, said Hugh Moeser, the trade office's deputy director. With an estimated annual market of NT$25.6 billion and an increasing interest in nutrition, Taiwan has great potential for Canadian companies, Wu Chao-hsiung (吳昭雄), managing director of Sentosa Co, said in a presentation.
■ FOOD
DOH monitors Thai coriander
Taipei will request Thai authorities to provide safety certification for its coriander exports to Taiwan after six batches of the imported herb were found to contain traces of a banned pesticide, a Department of Health (DOH) official said yesterday. Bureau of Food Safety Director-General Cheng Huei-wen (鄭慧文) said the 2,408kg of coriander was found to contain 0.37 parts per million of alpha-cypermethrin, a banned pesticide. All six batches were imported after July 1. The DOH has asked the Thai government to improve the situation, Cheng said, adding that from next week, all imported coriander from Thailand will be checked.
■ POLITICS
KMT calls for flip-flops
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) called on supporters yesterday to wear traditional blue-and-white flip-flops to its rally on Saturday in Taichung City as a symbol of the difficult lives of blue-collar workers. The rally aims to promote the party's proposed referendum to return to the UN and other international organizations and give the working class a voice, commissioner of the KMT's communication and culture committee Yang Tu (楊渡) told a press conference yesterday. "The blue-and-white flip-flops symbolize the spirit of the people's perseverance despite the difficulties in their lives," Yang said. The party hopes to attract 50,000 to 100,000 people at the rally, which will start at 4pm at 823 Park and be followed by a party scheduled to last until 9pm.
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