■ WEATHER
Typhoons forecast
Unstable weather is expected over Taiwan in the next couple of days, when two tropical depressions in adjacent areas are likely to develop into typhoons, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The tropical depression located near the Ryukyu Islands was moving north-northwest at 25kph, while the other one near the South China Sea was stagnant, forecasters said. The systems do not pose any direct threat to Taiwan for the time being, they added. Meanwhile, another tropical depression was taking shape in waters southeast of Taiwan, which together with the other two depressions will form a large depression belt, forecasters said. As the belt moves closer to Taiwan today, chances of rain will significantly increase around the nation, the bureau said.
■ SOCIAL WELFARE
Disadvantaged up 27%
The number of disadvantaged households rose nearly 27 percent to 15,077 in the first six months of this year, with 90,146 people receiving financial assistance from the government, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The government provided NT$228.9 million (US$7.2 million) to disadvantaged families from January to June, up 20 percent from the same period last year. The ministry said the number of families receiving assistance increased because of an amendment last year to the Act on Assisting Families in Difficult Circumstances (特殊境遇家庭扶助條例) that made single fathers and those families in which grandparents raise their grandchildren eligible for government subsidies and allowances. The act — originally aimed mostly at taking care of women — was first implemented in March 2008. It was amended last year to include eligible single fathers, grandparents and people under the age of 65 whose spouse has died.
■ FISHERIES
Taiwan joins tuna agency
Taiwan yesterday officially became a full member of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), which entitles it to vote in the commission’s policy-making process and gives a boost to the rights of Taiwanese fishermen, the Council of Agricultural Affairs announced on Friday. At a time when international management of tuna stocks has become increasingly restrictive, Taiwan’s full membership in the IATTC is very helpful in protecting Taiwanese fishing boats operating on the high seas, the council’s Fisheries Agency said. The IATTC is in charge of the management and conservation of tuna in the East Pacific, an important fishing ground for high-value species such as bigeye and yellowfin tuna for Taiwanese fishing vessels. Taiwan has been an IATTC observer since 1973, but that status did not confer voting rights.
■ DIPLOMACY
Chow Mei-ching to visit Haiti
First lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) is scheduled to make a humanitarian trip to Haiti today after the Caribbean country was devastated by a major earthquake in January, World Vision Taiwan said. She will make the trip as honorary president of the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China and as “Love Ambassador” for World Vision. According to World Vision, Chow will give away solar-powered light fixtures as part of Taiwan’s continuing effort to help its ally get back on its feet. After Haiti, Chow will also make a two-day stopover in the Dominican Republic, where she will visit a job training center, two primary schools and a health center. The first lady is scheduled to return to Taiwan next Sunday.
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