SPORTS
Council mulls options
The Sports Affairs Council (SAC) yesterday said it had collected all the evidence on the disqualification of taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, last month and would look at various scenarios before choosing the proper course of action. “We will fight for the scenario that is most advantageous to us,” the council said in a statement. The statement came after media reported that the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) was preparing to handle Yang’s disqualification and her refusal to leave the ring afterward, which delayed other bouts, as separate matters. The WTF could punish Yang and her coach for the latter, and the possible rulings could include barring Yang and her coach from participating in international competition, the reports said. The council said the Chinese Taipei Taekwondo Association had until tomorrow to submit a written report about Yang’s case.
CULTURE
TEDxMonga holds conference
TEDxMonga will hold its first conference at National Taiwan University today, featuring more than a dozen talks and presentations from Taiwan-based artists, educators, scientists and businesspeople. The non-profit organization, whose role is to promote “ideas worth spreading,” is teaming up with local, self-organized events to invite local speakers to share their experiences. TEDxMonga’s event theme is “Make It Real” and aims to put the spotlight on Taiwan’s successes and innovations in fields ranging from architecture and animation to science and entrepreneurship.
EDUCATION
Food draws foreign students
Taiwan’s fruit and its food have become major attractions for Japanese students in Taiwan, a student delegation from Japan that visited the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The 24-member student group from Japan’s Fukuoka Girls’ High School arrived in Taiwan on Monday and attended a presentation introducing the Taiwanese education system that was held by the ministry’s Bureau of International Cultural and Educational Relations. One of the students, Yamauchi Rikako, expressed her interest in studying in Taiwan and said Taiwan’s fruit is well known in Japan and that her motivation for visiting was to sample the food and experience the culture. Bureau Director Lin Wen-tong (林文通) said that every year, Taiwan invites groups of high school students from Japan to get a taste of local school life and help improve their understanding of the country.
HEALTH
Mad cow disease kills man
A Taiwanese man who spent eight years in the UK before returning home died earlier this year from what appeared to be mad cow disease, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The man, who was in the UK from 1978 to 1986, died in May at the age of 36. In 2008, he began to show symptoms of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD) such as memory loss and hypersomnia, and was reported as a suspected CJD case in March last year, the CDC said. However, the man’s family refused to provide tissue for testing or to give permission for an autopsy, making it difficult to confirm the cause of his death, CDC Deputy Director Lin Ting (林頂) said. “We cannot exclude this as a CJD case either,” Lin said. Based on the patient’s symptoms and his MRI and EEG records, a medical team has determined this was an “extremely likely case” of CJD, the CDC said in a press release.
HEALTH
NSC, institute sign MOU
The National Science Council (NSC) on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation on cancer research with Canada’s Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI). The agreement was signed by council Minister Lee Lou-chuang (李羅權) and the institute’s scientific director, Victor Lin. Taiwanese Representative to Canada David Lee (李大維), who was also present at the ceremony, said the institute had contributed considerably to cancer research through its sponsorship program and Taiwan hoped to contribute to enhancing human health through the cooperation. The institute, launched in 2007, is the brainchild of the Terry Fox Foundation, which supports cancer research through the annual Terry Fox Run fundraising campaign. Lin, who is also a researcher at Academia Sinica, said the institute mainly works in collaboration with cancer hospitals and research organizations. The Terry Fox Foundation has committed a minimum of C$50 million (US$49.42 million) over five years to support the work of the institute, Lin said.
WEATHER
Cold front lingers on
The nation remained under the influence of a cold front yesterday, with temperatures dropping as low as 9.4°C in Tamsui, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The cold front sent the mercury falling to its lowest level in the country since temperatures began to cool. The bureau said temperatures ranged between 11°C and 21°C yesterday, and the skies over most parts of the country would remain clear because of the dry air brought by the cold front. The cold weather is expected to last until tomorrow, the bureau said. Meanwhile, on Yushan (玉山), temperatures fell as low
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