INTERNET
NCC handles over 700 cases
The government has handled 729 complaints and criminal cases, mostly about online material deemed obscene, since opening a service for reporting inappropriate Web content and online crimes on Aug. 2, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said on Saturday. In a report, the commission said 54 percent of the complaints were about pornography, 19 percent about online crime and 15 percent about inappropriate advertising content. Since the report system opened, authorities have removed or imposed restrictions on 234 Web sites that were reportedly involved in online crime or carrying material deemed obscene or otherwise inappropriate, the commission report said.
HEALTH
DOH promotes dialogue
This year’s Patient Safety Awareness Week will center on building an interactive partnership between doctors and patients, the Department of Health (DOH) said. The event, an annual healthcare safety education campaign, began on Sunday and runs through Saturday. It features seminars and activities in Taipei and seven other municipalities for both patients and physicians. Wang Tsung-hsi (王宗曦), deputy director-general of the Bureau of Medical Affairs, said most patients are too shy to speak to doctors when they should be talking about their symptoms and telling doctors of any possible mistakes. “It is proven in Western countries that patient awareness campaigns can efficiently reduce false diagnoses, death rates and reinfection rates,” Wang said. Throughout the year, 50 hospitals nationwide will work to improve communication between patients and doctors, he said. Patient awareness is also one of the factors in hospital evaluations, Wang said.
DESIGN
Local firms go to Shanghai
Eleven Taiwanese design firms are scheduled to take part in Interior Lifestyle China — one of China’s leading consumer goods fairs — scheduled to take place from tomorrow through Saturday in Shanghai, the Council for Cultural Affairs said yesterday. Under the banner “Bravo Taiwan,” the group will display the cream of the latest products from Taiwan’s cultural and creative industry, a council official said. Taiwan will have a 56m2 pavilion at the exhibition, displaying the latest designs in areas including ceramics, lighting, furniture and interior decor, with an “oriental chic” theme. The council organized a similar group that attended last month’s 100% Design London — one of the world’s most important contemporary interior design exhibitions — where the Taiwanese designers won high acclaim for their products.
CULTURE
First lady flies out for troupe
First lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青) departed for Germany on Sunday in her capacity as honorary director of the Taiwanese opera troupe Ming Hwa Yuan (明華園), which has begun its European tour. Chow was all smiles when she arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. The troupe will start its tour with its most popular production, The Living Buddha, in Berlin, and then visit six other cities — Prague, Vienna, Paris, London, Edinburgh and Amsterdam. Aside from nine performances, the troupe will also hold workshops at universities to introduce the traditional Taiwanese art form to European audiences, the troupe said in a statement.
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