TRAVEL
Queensland alert lowered
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs downgraded its travel alert for Queensland, Australia, to its lowest level — “gray” — yesterday, as the state gradually recovers from a serious flood disaster that began in December. The ministry said in a statement that the travel advisory for Queensland was downgraded because the supply of daily necessities in the region has stabilized. Since some areas in Queensland are still striving to recover from disastrous rains earlier this month, the ministry said those intending to visit should remain vigilant. Taiwanese traveling, studying or doing business in Australia can contact Taiwan’s representative office in Canberra or its branches in other major Australian cities if they encounter problems or need emergency help, the ministry said.
SCIENCE
A*STAR inks hospital pacts
Singapore’s leading science agency signed an agreement with National Taiwan University Hospital and Chang Gung Medical Hospital yesterday. The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the Singaporean government’s scientific research institution, will work in partnership with the two hospitals on the development of a new diagnostic tool and its application in clinical trials. They will collaborate on the testing of a new diagnostic imaging tool that will allow doctors to identify organ fibrosis and thus provide more effective treatment for patients with liver and kidney disease. “Taiwan has an upper hand in the development of medical instruments in that many Taiwanese physicians double as researchers,” said Huang Kai-wen (黃楷文), an associate professor at the university hospital and a hepatic surgeon. “We can help Singaporean scientists put their theories into practice.” Taiwan also has more patients than Singapore who can be enlisted for clinical trials, he said.
TAXES
E-filing program expands
An e-filing and payment system for individual income tax has been made applicable to residents of Hong Kong and Macau, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The online income tax declaration and payment system was opened last year to foreigners who stayed in the country for more than 183 days that year, except for those from China, Hong Kong and Macau. Starting this year, though, Hong Kong and Macau residents can use their Alien Resident Certificate numbers to access the online tax declaration mechanism. Individual taxpayers — both locals and foreigners — must file their taxes by May 31, but the ministry said that as long as the filing process is completed by June 2, late penalties would not be imposed.
HEALTH
Calcium product rejected
The Department of Health yesterday said a shipment of NeuEvo Blend’s calcium liquid was found to contain too many preservatives and was returned to the US. The Food and Drug Administration recently found that a shipment of 9,415kg of the calcium supplement contained 0.791g per kilogram of benzoic acid and 0.678 g per kilogram of sorbic acid, which exceeded the total maximum legal limit of 1g per kg. The agency said that although the amount of preservatives found in the product did not pose any health risks, it was returned to its country of origin because it violated Taiwan’s standards. Spot checks of the company’s calcium liquid product would also be increased from the previous 5 percent to as much as 20 percent as a result of the violation.
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