■ RELIGION
MOI releases temple tally
A total of 14,841 temples and churches were officially registered with the government as of the end of last year, statistics compiled by the Ministry of the Interior showed. Some 78 percent of the country’s officially registered 11,651 temples, or 9,137 temples, were Taoist, while close to 20 percent were Buddhist, statistics showed. In terms of cities and counties, Tainan County had the highest number of religious buildings, with 1,234 temples and churches, followed by Kaohsiung County with 1,135 and Pingtung County with 1,067. As of the end of last year, there were 3,190 churches across Taiwan, with 2,468 Christian churches and 688 Catholic churches, the same tallies showed. Taipei City had the most churches with 428.
■POLITICS
TSU slams cross-strait policy
Most of the public believes that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government has relaxed cross-strait policies too rapidly since taking office, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said yesterday. Huang said that when the TSU agreed to let one of its members, former legislator Lai Shin-yuan, join the KMT government as the chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council, the TSU based the decision on the conditions that cross-strait policy would maintain Taiwan’s national dignity, benefit the average person and highlight Taiwanese identity, Huang said during a meeting with party members in Changhua. But when the quasi-official bodies representing Taiwan and China held talks earlier this month on starting direct charter flights, China dominated the negotiating agenda, Huang said.
■WEATHER
COA plans mudslide drill
The Council of Agriculture (COA) will simulate a mudslide in Nantou County on Tuesday to test the preparedness of rescue and relief teams to cope with possible mudslides during the typhoon season, COA Deputy Minister Hu Sing-hwa (胡興華) said yesterday. Taiwan’s typhoon season typically runs from July to November. Hu said the drill, which will take place in Nantou County’s Shuili Township (水里), will feature a scenario in which a mudslide occurs following torrential rains brought by a typhoon. The drill will test the responses of the central government and local governments, including the speed with which they set up command centers, evacuate residents, provide medical care and deliver necessities to victims. The drill is one of 42 scheduled by the COA this year.
■ECONOMY
More babies needed: CEPD
The government should help reduce the cost of raising and educating children to boost falling birth rates, the Council for Economic Planning and Development said yesterday. The council said in a statement that the government should to create an environment in which couples who wish to have children can take parental leave without worrying about increasing the burden on their companies. Without such concerns, couples would be more willing to have children, it said. The government should also launch measures to help couples reduce daycare costs and educational expenses, it said. The council attributed the nation’s dropping birth rate to the increasing number of people who are getting married at an older age and a decreasing number of married women. It forecast that the number of newborns this year would decline to 204,000 from 270,000 in 1998 and that the average birth rate would fall to 1.1 children.
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