■ EARTHQUAKES
Undersea quake jolts nation
An undersea earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale jolted Taiwan yesterday, the Central Weather Bureau said. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties, but the quake was felt across the nation. The tremor struck at 11.05am and was centered 7km northeast of Ilan City, the bureau said.
■ CHARITY
Foundation builds school
The Buddhist Compassionate Relief Tzu Chi Foundation is constructing a secondary school in northern Thailand as part of its ongoing efforts to help people in the region, a foundation spokesman said yesterday. The school is scheduled to be inaugurated in two years, said the spokesman for the charitable organization, which is headquartered in Hualien County. The volunteer-based humanitarian foundation launched an aid program aimed at helping the people of the region in 1994, the spokesman said. Under the program, the foundation has built four Tzu Chi villages to offer agricultural know-how and to take care of those who are unable to make a living, the spokesman said. The foundation has also provided scholarships to disadvantaged children, the spokesman said, adding that it also opened a primary school in the region in May 2005. The school has 275 students, he said.
■ AGRICULTURE
COA purchases rice
The Council of Agriculture (COA) has started buying unhusked rice damaged by Typhoon Krosa to help ease farmers' financial losses, a COA official said yesterday. Agricultural losses resulting from Krosa, which swept through northern and northeastern Taiwan on Saturday, bringing strong wind and torrential rain, have exceeded NT$3.85 billion (US$117.68 million), the official said, citing the latest statistics released by the COA. Rice and bananas were the two worst-hit crops. Other crops such as grapes, persimmons, ponkan mandarin oranges, guavas, bell fruit and papayas also suffered serious damage, the official said. The typhoon also caused losses to forestry production, damage to fishery and aquaculture facilities, and numerous stock and poultry deaths. Farmers in Miaoli, Taichung, Changhua, Nantou, Yunlin, Chiayi, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Hualien, Taitung and Ilan counties are eligible for both government relief aid and low-interest loans, while farmers in Hsinchu and Pingtung counties can apply for low-interest loans, the official said.
■ TRANSPORTATION
Carriers eye Czech route
China Airlines (CAL) and EVA Airways -- the nation's two largest carriers -- expressed interest yesterday in offering flights to Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, after Taiwan and the central European country signed an aviation agreement earlier in the day. Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) Director-General Billy Chang (張國政) and his Czech counterpart, Jindrich Ploch, signed the agreement and CAA officials said that although CAL operates cargo flights between Taipei and Prague, it had to apply separately for each individual flight. With the signing of the agreement, the two sides agree to 14 passenger flights per week, with no limit on the number of cargo flights. Passenger and cargo flight services will also be granted the fifth freedom of the air, meaning the right to take on passengers, mail and cargo destined for the territory of another agreeing nation and to put down passengers, mail and cargo coming from any such territory.
■ TOURISM
Gondola to close for repairs
Taipei's Maokong Gondola system will be shut down from Oct. 22 to Oct. 29 to shorten the cable by 6m to 8m as part of routine maintenance, the Taipei City Government said yesterday. Taipei City Secretariat Deputy Director Yang Hsi-an (楊錫安) said the cable was expected to stretch 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent in the initial stage of operation, and shortening the rope helped maintain its elasticity. French company POMA, the builder of the cable car system, will be responsible for the maintenance procedure, Yang said. Similar gondola systems in other countries, including the Sky Rail in Australia and Medelline in Columbia, also adjusted their cable lengths two to three months after going into operation, he said. The service will resume on Oct. 30.
■ HEALTH
Project aims to aid elders
Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (李逸洋) announced yesterday that a 10-year project to build a nationwide elder care network would begin no later than the end of this year. "Advances in medical technology are enabling people to live longer. Our job is to make sure that people not only live longer, but also live better in their old age," Lee told the news conference. The 10-year project aims to create at-home or community elder care services geared toward providing the elderly with good care close to home. The project would include sending trained caretakers to assist in elder care at home, creating community daycare centers for the elderly, providing at-home elder-sitting services and financial aid to creating an accessible home, Lee said. Elderly people may choose one or more services depending on their needs, he said.
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