WEATHER
Temperatures to drop
A cold front moving across the nation will send temperatures plunging to a low of 9°C in northern and central Taiwan by early this morning, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. All areas of the country are expected to experience a sharp drop in temperature from yesterday until this afternoon, the bureau said. After that, temperatures in regions north of the Chiayi area are expected to rise to between 15°C and 18°C, the bureau said. The cold weather will last until Friday, with a small chance of rain and snow in the mountainous areas of country, according to the bureau.
TRAVEL
Canada raises work quota
More Taiwanese will be able to take a working holiday in Canada next year after Ottawa raised the quota for Taiwanese participation in the program from 700 to 1,000, the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei (CTOT) said in a statement yesterday. “The Canadian Trade Office in Taipei is pleased to announce that we have increased our quota for the 2011 International Experience Canada initiative to 1,000 for Taiwan,” the office said. Taiwan and Canada signed an agreement earlier this year to launch the working holiday program on July 1. Under the program, people aged 18 to 35 from the two countries are allowed to travel and work in each other’s country for up to one year. The original annual quota of 200 was raised to 700 on July 27 because of an enthusiastic response from local youth. CTOT said it would be accepting applications for the program postmarked on or after Jan. 10. Taipei has signed working holiday agreements with six countries — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Germany and Japan.
BUSINESS
Foodies swap ideas
Food business operators from Taiwan and the US exchanged ideas on how to break into each other’s market on the opening day of the Gourmet Taiwan International Conference in Taipei yesterday. The opening ceremony was attended by more than 200 participants, including a group of 30 people from the US engaged in the food and hotel sectors, said the ROC-USA Business Council, the main organizer of the four-day conference. Chen Fei-lung (陳飛龍), executive supervisor of the business council, said he hoped that with the support of the government, Taiwanese foods and food businesses would be able to go international. Working with overseas compatriots and exploring global markets will be a positive force for the Taiwanese food industry because more jobs and business opportunities will be created, he said. The conference will include a series of keynote speeches and Taiwanese food business operators will have the opportunity to hold discussions with their counterparts from the US.
POLITICS
Kaohsiung officials resign
Senior Kaohsiung City Government officials yesterday resigned en masse to allow Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) to appoint her new administrative team for the soon-to-be-created Greater Kaohsiung municipality. A total of 24 political appointees, including Deputy Mayor Lee Yung-te (李永得), stepped down while Chen promised to give talents from Kaohsiung County equal opportunities to serve in the Greater Kaohsiung Government. After the merger of the city and county is completed on Dec. 25, Greater Kaohsiung will become the nation’s second-largest administrative municipality. Chen said that age, gender and expertise would be key factors in choosing staffers.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Tibetans to walk 400km
Exiled Tibetans in Taiwan will start to walk from the north to the south of the island on Friday to raise public awareness of China’s suppression of their homeland. The 13-day event will be part of the “Walk for Tibet” global campaign aimed at “sharing our message of world peace, human rights and the Tibetan struggle for independence,” the organizers said. Jigme Norbu, nephew of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and son of the late Taktser Rinpoche, who supported Tibetan independence, will join the activity, Regional Tibetan Youth Congress Taiwan chairman Tashi Tsering said in a statement on Monday. The walk in Taiwan will cover more than 400km and 10 counties.
CHARITY
PBF to hold charity sale
The personal belongings of Taiwanese baseball celebrities will go on sale at a charity bazaar this week to raise money for premature babies, event organizer Premature Baby Foundation (PBF) said on Monday. Though national health insurance subsidizes between 80 and 90 percent of the medical care expenses for premature babies, some families still find it hard to afford extra treatment and counseling services that are not reimbursed by the insurance system, PBF president Lee Hung-chang (李宏昌) said. “We hope to raise public awareness about the needs of families with premature children through the sale,” Lee said. Yuki Huang, the mother of two premature babies born at 28 and 26 weeks respectively, said she was thankful for the financial support offered by the foundation. “Preemie parents have constant doubts about the babies’ well-being after being discharged from hospital,” said Huang, whose worries eased after enrolling in the foundation’s free follow-up program.
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