TRAVEL
Germany warning issued
Taiwanese visiting Germany have been advised to be on the alert against potential terrorist attacks around the end of the month, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official said yesterday. The travel warning was issued after German Minister of the Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on Wednesday that his ministry had obtained concrete evidence that terrorists were planning to launch attacks in Germany by the end of the month, MOFA spokesman James Chang (章計平) said. For now, the travel alert for Germany will remain gray, the lowest level in the MOFA’s four-color system, Chang said. However, Taiwanese visitors to Germany should take extra safety precautions, he said. German officials said the terror warning was serious enough for them to “expect an attack at any time.”
DIPLOMACY
US ambassador to visit
Luis CdeBaca, ambassador-at-large of the US Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, is scheduled to visit Taiwan tomorrow for a four-day visit, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a press release yesterday. The ambassador will meet with government officials and local non-governmental organizations to exchange views on working together to end human trafficking, the AIT said. Taiwan was listed in “Tier 1” — the highest level — in this year’s Trafficking in Persons Report, which was published by the US Department of State in June, because of Taiwan’s full compliance with the minimum standard for the elimination of trafficking. CdeBaca was appointed by US President Barack Obama in May last year to coordinate US government activities in the global fight against contemporary forms of slavery. AIT Chairman Raymond Burghardt, meanwhile, is also scheduled to visit Taiwan and deliver a speech soon after the Nov. 27 special municipality elections, according to the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei.
ARTS
Taipei County festival opens
Arts lovers are expected to pack into the Left Bank Arts Festival to see a wide range of performances and activities in the next few days after the annual event opened in Taipei County yesterday. Hosted by the Shihsanhang Archeological Museum, the festival this year invited groups of artists to create works that are related to the Tamsui River. Lin Hsiu-wei (林秀偉), producer for the Contemporary Legend Theater, and famous opera diva Wei Hai-min (魏海敏) are jointly presenting work at the festival. In addition to lively dance and theater performances, participants can learn first-hand about traditional Taiwanese craftsmanship from bronze sculptor Wu Tsung-lin (吳宗霖), tree carver Lee Yung-mou (李永謀) and Hakka blue-dye artist Hsieh Pei-hua (謝佩華). The Left Bank Arts Festival runs at three separate venues until Nov. 28.
SOCIETY
iPhone addiction rising
Apple’s iPhone series is giving rise to an “iPhone addiction,” said Yang Tsung-tsai (楊聰財), a psychiatrist at Cardinal Tien Hospital in Sindian (新店), Taipei County. Yang said one of his patients, a high school student, couldn’t take his eyes off his phone, surfing the Internet in class and staying up late to play with his phone and missing classes as a result. Another psychiatrist, Lee Kuang-hui (李光輝), said iPhone addiction seemed to have eclipsed computer addiction. Yang said those who spend all their time online probably have a latent emotional disorder or even depression and should seek medical treatment.
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