EMPLOYMENT
Sweden eases permit rules
The Swedish Trade Council in Taipei has simplified the process for Taiwanese nationals applying for Swedish work permits. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Wednesday that Republic of China (ROC) passport holders applying for Swedish work permits can simply present a copy of an application approval letter, which the council would send to them via e-mail, when they go through Swedish customs. After entering Sweden, the letter holder then only needs to report to the Swedish Migration Board closest to his workplace to provide a photo and fingerprints to complete the application process, the ministry said, adding that the letter holder will receive the work permit on the spot. Before the change, ROC passport holders had to go through a lengthy application process that included a visit to the nearest visa application center in Hong Kong. The new process is outlined on the council’s Web site.
SCIENCE
University builds telescope
Construction of the nation’s largest telescope will be completed in 2016, boosting the nation’s astronomical observation capacity by at least 10 times, National Central University officials said earlier this week. The university is constructing the 2m optical telescope with financial support from the Ministry of Education and Delta Electronics Inc. The telescope’s four-color simultaneous imager will give more accurate color measurements and its fully depleted charge-coupled devices offer higher sensitivity, the officials said. It will be used to track and conduct follow-up observations on new discoveries made by the US-proposed Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System to search for celestial objects that might collide with Earth, they said.
CULTURE
Troupe to perform in Beijing
The famed Paper Windmill Theatre said yesterday it would stage its trademark children’s play Windmill Fantasia, in Beijing. The children’s musical will be shown at the National Grand Theater in Beijing tomorrow and Sunday as part of the 2011 Beijing International Children’s Theatre Festival, Paper Windmill Theatre director Jen Chien-cheng (任建誠) said. The group has been invited to perform in Beijing because it offers a unique experience combining drama and creativity that is rarely seen among Chinese performance groups, Jen said. Windmill Fantasia features selected acts from the troupe’s major productions.
INSURANCE
Monkey attacks covered
The Greater Kaohsiung Government announced on Wednesday that visitors attacked by monkeys while visiting scenic areas in the city would be able to claim compensation from the municipality starting next month. Formosan rock macaques, a protected species, have become pests, often harassing visitors for food at the Chaishan (柴山) area. Tourists who visit scenic areas such as Shoushan (壽山), Jinshi Lake (金獅湖), Chengcing Lake (澄清湖) and Cijin (旗津) are covered by a public accident liability insurance scheme with maximum coverage of NT$500,000. Only -accident-induced expenses are covered.
TRAVEL
Visa-waiver boosts EU travel
The inclusion of Republic of China (ROC) citizens in the EU visa-waiver program this year has boosted travel to Europe, industry insiders said. Since January when the visa waiver for 35 European countries took effect, travel agencies said they had seen a 5 percent to 10 percent increase in sales of European tours. Lion Travel manager Chou Wen-chuan (周文娟) said the visa-waiver program had led to interest in less traditionally popular European destinations such as Croatia. Another travel agency, Go Federal, said sales of its European railway packages had increased by 30 percent in the early half of this year. Tourism Bureau statistics showed that about 93,700 Taiwanese tourists visited Europe in the first five months of this year, a 7 percent jump from the same period last year. Chou said one of the factors contributing to the increase in travels to Europe was “marriage fever,” as more couples wed in the ROC’s centennial year.
SCIENCE
Research agreement signed
The National Science Council on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a German research foundation, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), in a bid to enhance its international science research and shorten the period of schooling for Taiwanese graduate students. The MOU, which was signed by DFG chairman Matthias Kleiner and National Science Council Minister Lee Lou-chuang (李羅權) in Taipei, will introduce two of DFG’s academic projects, the council said in a statement. One is the Research Training Group, which provides graduate students with research-centric training programs. The other one is the International Research Training Group, which allows young researchers to accept instruction or thesis guidance from professors from the two countries. The cooperation will focus on creative research projects across different fields and integrated classes, and aim to develop interschool research direction and shorten the period of time for Taiwanese graduate students to finish their doctoral dissertations.
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