DIPLOMACY
Ma aims for Slovakia treaty
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday said the nation hoped to negotiate a treaty with Slovakia to avoid double taxation and enhance business collaboration. Taiwan also hopes to sign a working holiday visa agreement and a driver’s license reciprocity agreement with Slovakia, Ma said during a meeting with Ivan Stefanec, chairman of the Slovak-Taiwanese Parliamentary Friendship Group, along with a delegation of Slovakian members of parliament and government officials, at the Presidential Office. It is the first time that high-ranking officials from Slovakia have visited Taiwan, the Presidential Office said. Ma said several leading Taiwanese technology companies, such as electronics contract maker Hon Hai Precision Industry Co and flat panel maker AU Optronics Corp, have invested in Slovakia.
EDUCATION
Education forum to begin
Academics, university leaders and policymakers from the Asia-Pacific region will gather at a conference in Taipei from tomorrow through Sunday. The Asia-Pacific Association for International Education (APAIE) meeting will focus on the theme “Asia-Pacific Education: Impacting the World,” the organizers said yesterday. Founded in 2004 by Lee Doo-hee, vice president and professor at Korea University, the APAIE is recognized as one of the three most influential associations in the world, said Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔), president of National Taiwan University, which is hosting the event. Lee said more than 600 people working at institutions of higher education in 40 countries would participate in the conference, which he said would provide a good opportunity for local universities to forge ties with neighbors in the region.
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