■POLITICS
Yu touted for Sinbei City
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials said yesterday that former premier Yu Shyi-kun (游錫堃) is likely to stand for the party in the Sinbei City elections. DPP officials said that because DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has ruled out taking part in November’s special municipality vote, Yu was the party’s most likely candidate in that race. If Yu is chosen, he will go head-to-head with Vice Premier Eric Chu (朱立倫) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). DPP officials said the party faces a difficult choice for a candidate for Greater Taichung because Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) of the KMT is seen as a strong candidate. DPP Secretary-General Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) and former Government Information Office director-general Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) were neck-and-neck in a poll for the race and the party is prepared to conduct another survey, DPP officials said.
■SOCIETY
Prospects for moms falter
Of all the working mothers who have quit their jobs but later returned to the workforce, only 28 percent say they managed to land jobs similar to their career path before they stopped working and 76 percent say their salaries are now lower, a poll conducted by 1111 Job Bank showed. The job bank cited data from the Directorate-General of Budgeting, Accounting and Statistics that showed 66.3 percent of married women aged between 15 and 64 years old, have had the experience of leaving the workforce to marry or have children. Of these women, they stayed out of the workforce for an average length of six years. The e-mail survey of 1,259 women conducted last month found most working mothers hold jobs in office administration, human resources, accounting and clerical work, with an average monthly salary of NT$29,493. Working mothers who have returned to work after a period as stay-at-home mothers say their salaries decreased significantly, by an average of NT$7,106.
■TECHNOLOGY
Taiwan scoops medals
Taiwan has garnered a total of 17 medals, including four gold and four silver, at one of the world’s most prestigious invention fairs that closed on Saturday in Paris. Taiwan presented 17 items at the Concours Lepine International Paris 2010, which made it the third-largest participant in the show, behind Poland, with 31 inventions and China with 27. Taiwan’s gold-medal entries were a biocide air filter, an ergonomic chair, a custom-made LED lamp and reusable adhesive. Silver-medal items included a specially designed life vest, a fragrant necklace and a safety shoe toe. Other local entries included a cake knife, an umbrella with its own lighting system, an emergency kit that can be converted into a rope, and a tea cup that automatically separates tea leaves from water. Rene-Georges Lavergne, head of the panel of judges, said most of the Taiwanese entries were suitable for practical everyday needs and thus won favor among the judges.
■ARTS
Renowned pianist to perform
Renowned Mexican pianist Jose Luis Altamirano will play a concert at the National Taiwan Library in Zhonghe City on Thursday, the Mexican Trade Services Documentation and Cultural Office in Taiwan said. “I am pleased and feel honored to share my music with the people in Taiwan,” Altamirano said. Martin Munoz Ledo Villegas, head of the Mexican office, said the concert, titled “Inspiration Mexicana,” will help promote understanding between the two cultures.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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