■ EDUCATION
TOEFL tests canceled
Hundreds of Taiwanese students were unable to take their TOEFL tests when the US test administering company, Educational Testing Service (ETS), canceled four test sessions in Taipei and Tainan on Saturday with only a few days' notice. Many students were angry and complained that the company's service was not worth the NT$5,000 fee they had to pay to take the test. Some students said the delay would mean that their applications for schools in the US could not be submitted on time. Many US schools require international students to submit TOEFL scores as part of the application process. ETS did not give any reason for the cancelations, saying only that those who had registered for the tests could take tests at a later date or opt for a refund.
■ WELFARE
Ministry applauds center
The domestic and sexual violence prevention center in Kaohsiung County has been recognized by the Ministry of the Interior for its outstanding service over the past year. Citing statistics compiled by the center, officials at the social affairs bureau said that NT$12.1 million (US$370,000) in aid was distributed in the first 10 months of the year. During the January to October period, 4,580 cases of domestic violence were reported to the center, 216 more than in the same period of last year, the tallies showed. The number of teen abuse cases increased most, by 170, and there were also 31 more cases involving senior citizens. Officials said the public should not hesitate to contact the county's social affairs bureau or police if friends or relatives are assaulted.
■ BUSINESS
Telecom deal signed
Chunghwa Telecom, the nation's largest telecom operator, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Palau National Communications Corp (PNCC) in Taipei to help PNCC enhance its technology and services. Chunghwa Telecom chairman Hochen Tan (賀陳旦) made the announcement after inking the MOU on Friday with PNCC chairwoman Leilani Reklai, who came to Taiwan to take part in an international travel fair in Taipei. Ho said the MOU was the result of a visit he made to Palau's state-run PNCC last month. During the visit, Ho said he discovered that the PNCC had earned significant revenues from its Internet, mobile phone and cable TV services. However, there is still a lot of room for growth in the penetration rates within these services, Ho said.
■ POLITICS
Gamzou defends Tzu Chi
Israeli Representative to Taiwan Raphael Gamzou has defended the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation's relief work in China, saying that the resources the foundation uses in China go toward humanitarian projects. In an interview with the Central News Agency, Gamzou, who assumed his position in Taipei in September last year, took issue with recent criticism that Tzu Chi should not have used local resources to help people in China -- a hostile neighbor. Gamzou said he became a Tzu Chi volunteer because he was moved by the foundation's humanitarian projects throughout the world. Israel's de facto ambassador in Taipei said the Tzu Chi spirit of helping people all over the world, irrespective of race, religion, culture or geography, was one of Taiwan's greatest achievements.
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
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
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