■LABOR
CLA to advocate unions
The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) said yesterday it would advocate the formation of more trade unions in Taiwan and hopes the number will increase by at least 80 in the next four years. The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to the Labor Union Act (工會法) on June 1, making it compulsory for employees to join their company’s trade union. However, some labor rights groups said at a seminar yesterday that there are too few trade unions in the country to adequately protect workers’ rights. In response, Liu Chuan-min (劉傳名), head of the CLA’s Department of Labor Relations, said the goal of 20 new trade unions per year for the next four years is a minimum. At present there are 947 trade unions in Taiwan, which is about 3.3 percent of the total number possible if all eligible enterprises — those that employ more than 30 workers — set up trade unions for their workers. Because of the economic slump and legal restrictions, the number of trade unions in Taiwan dropped from 1,310 in 1992 to 947 last year, according to Taiwan Labor Front secretary-general Sun Yu-lien (孫友聯).
■HEALTH
At-home checks to begin
Starting next month, paralyzed or severely handicapped patients will be able to apply for at-home assessments to hire foreign caregivers, the Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday. The DOH’s Bureau of Nursing and Health Services Development said that local long-term care centers would send a representative to paralyzed or handicapped patients’ homes within 14 days of receiving an application form to hire a foreign caregiver. They will complete an assessment within three days and notify the patient of the result. However, the applicant will be charged for the associated costs — NT$2,000 for visitation fees, and about NT$1,000 for the evaluation fee and transportation costs. The bureau said fees can be waived for low-income families, while middle income households need only pay 10 percent of the fees.
■EDUCATION
India to accept degrees
India has officially recognized degrees issued by Taiwan’s 167 universities and colleges, Taiwan’s representative to India Ong Wen-chyi (翁文琪) said on Tuesday. Ong said that during a visit to Taipei in early March, the Association of India Universities (AIU) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Federation of Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan to pave the way for mutual recognition of university degrees. The AIU completed a case-by-case screening process at its board of trustees meeting on May 27 and decided to accept all the 167 Taiwanese universities’ academic degrees. That means Taiwanese applying to study for advanced degrees in India and Indian nationals applying to study in Taiwan will have their university degrees recognized.
■DIPLOMACY
Chinese delegation arrives
A Chinese delegation headed by Zhejiang Governor Lu Zushan (呂祖善) arrived in Taiwan yesterday for a weeklong visit. Upon his arrival, Lu said he was pleased that six Zhejiang companies have been allowed to invest in Taiwan and said he believed that more companies from the province would follow suit. The delegation will attend a Taiwan-Zhejiang economic and cultural cooperation forum today and call on a number of companies in the banking and industrial sectors, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
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