CULTURE
Exhibition marks anniversary of Berlin Wall’s fall
The German Cultural Center will open a photo exhibition today to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Before the Fall-Laten Utopia” features photographs and video footage of East Germany before the wall came down by Leipzig-based photographer and conceptual artist Maix Mayer who has been Taiwan a few times to take pictures of Taipei 101 and corroding remains of the abandoned “UFO” apartment resort development in Sanjhij (三芝), Taipei County. The exhibit is open from 1pm to 8pm, Monday to Friday, until April 30. For more information, contact Deutsches Kulturzentrum Taipei at (02) 2365 7294, or www.dk-taipei.org.tw.
DIPLOMACY
MECO services available on April 5
The Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) said its First Sunday Passport Services for overseas workers who need passport, labor and welfare assistance will be open this Sunday even though April 5 is Tomb Sweeping Day. The First Sunday Passport Services are available in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung on the first Sunday of each month. MECO will be closed for Araw ng Kagitingan on Monday, April 6, and Maundy Thursday on April 9 as well as Good Friday on April 10. It will also be closed for Labor Day on Monday, May 1, Dragon Boat Festival on Thursday, May 28 and Philippine Independence Day on Friday, June 12. For information about passport services or labor affairs, call MECO-Taipei at (02) 2508-1719.
CULTURE
Fu Jen celebrates Italian culture
The Department of Italian Language and Literature of the Fu Jen Catholic University and the Italian Economic, Trade and Cultural Promotion Office (IETCPO) in Taipei cohosted the department’s Piazza Italia last Saturday, an annual event to promote Italian culture and language. Department chairwoman Antonella Tulli said Taiwan and Italy have many things in common. The Lan Yang Dance Troupe, established by Italian priest Father Giancarlo Michelini, was the best example of the link between the two countries, she said. Saturday’s event featured an exhibition of Italian foods, a cooking demonstration by an Italian chef from the Shangri-La Far Eastern Plaza Hotel and a speech by Italian illustrator Stefano Misesti on his work in Taiwan. The event attracted some 300 participants.
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