■ DIPLOMACY
Canada may waive visas
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday it was “cautiously optimistic” that Canada would grant Taiwanese passport holders visa-free treatment by the end of the year. Taipei and Ottawa have agreed that visa-free treatment for Taiwanese citizens should not be linked with imports of Canadian beef — as the Canadian agricultural ministry had hoped to do — so political resistance to the issue has been overcome, said Harry Tseng (曾厚仁), director-general of the ministry’s Department of North American Affairs. Since Taiwan offers Canadians visa-free entry, the Canadian government thinks it would be fair to grant the same privileges to Taiwanese nationals, Tseng said. However, he said it was unlikely the US would lift visa requirements for Taiwanese visitors by the end of this year because Taiwan may not be able to meet Washington’s requirements in time.
■ CROSS-STRAIT TIES
Chen Yunlin visit delayed
A visit to Taiwan next month by China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) is likely to be delayed due mainly to a tight schedule that month for exchange visits across the Strait, Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. Taiwan and China agreed during negotiations in Chongqing, China, in late June that Chen would lead a business delegation on a visit to Taiwan on Sept. 5. However, while there have been no changes in Taiwan’s plans for Chen to visit, it is not yet known whether the trip will take place before the end of the year, the SEF said.
■HEALTH
Many teens addicted to Net
Eighteen percent of the nation’s 16-year-old students are addicted to the Internet and are at a higher risk than others for emotional disorders, a local hospital said on Wednesday. The Tri-Service General Hospital conducted a survey at a Taipei high school for three consecutive years and polled 2,600 freshmen with an average age of 16. The hospital defined Internet addiction disorders as excessive computer use that interferes with an individual’s job, schooling or social life. Nearly 20 percent of those deemed Internet addicts suffered emotional disorders, with the rate for male students higher than that for females, said Wang Tzong-shi (王宗熙), a psychiatrist specializing in teenagers at the hospital. Wang said Internet addicts are more likely to suffer learning disabilities and impulse control disorders. “If children surf the Net for six to seven hours a day and react very emotionally when asked to stop, parents need to pay extra attention to the addiction issue,” Wang said.
■ ART
Student wins red dot award
A student from National Taiwan University of Science and Technology has won a “best of the best” prize in the communication category of this year’s red dot design award — the world’s largest and most prestigious design competition, the university said yesterday. Lee Pei-wen (李珮雯) was recognized for her project Eros. The four-minute 3D film depicts the human gestation process in a video game setting. The main character, a combat aircraft named Eros, is transformed from a baby moving inside its mother’s womb as it struggles against various birth-blocking obstacles. Lee said her inspiration came from her elder sister’s first pregnancy and the experience of her own mother, who once considered an abortion.
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