SOCIETY
New Year holiday extended
The Lunar New Year holiday next year will run for nine days from Jan. 21 to Jan. 29, Central Personnel Administration Minister Wu Tai-cheng (吳泰成) said yesterday. In response to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) during a question-and-answer session, Wu said the administration had decided to designate Jan. 27, a Friday, a holiday, thereby extending the six-day Lunar New Year holiday to nine days. The administration would also designate Feb. 4, a Saturday, a working day to make up for the Jan. 27 holiday, Wu said, adding that his agency would formally unveil its proposals before the end of this month. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education said this year’s winter vacation for schools would run from Jan. 18 to Feb. 7 following college entrance exams on Jan. 17 and Jan. 18.
CRIME
Thai workers deported
Seventy-nine illegal Thai workers were deported on a charter flight on Thursday. The trip home, co-funded by Taiwanese businesspeople based in Thailand, was initiated by the Thai government as part of its celebration of the 84th birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The Thai government paid 2 million baht (US$64,900) to book the flight, while Taiwanese businesspeople contributed another 1.3 million baht for other expenses. The deportation was agreed after six months of negotiations with the Thai government, Thai-Taiwan Business Association president Norman Chang (張峰豪) said at a press conference after the group arrived in Bangkok. Also at the conference, Taiwan’s Representative to Thailand Henry Chen (陳銘政) extended his thanks to the Thai workers for their contribution to Taiwan’s infrastructure.
HEALTHCARE
Specialists gather in Taipei
More than 1,000 Asian obstetrics and gynecology specialists gathered in Taipei yesterday to exchange views and share new findings in women’s health. This marked the first time since 1989 that Taiwan had hosted the Asia and Oceania Congress of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Taiwan Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology president James Hsieh (謝卿宏) said. During the five-day congress titled “New Frontiers in Women’s Health,” topics ranging from miscarriages, pregnancy and labor risks to laparoscopic surgery would be covered, Hsieh said. He also expressed the association’s eagerness to host a bigger conference — the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics -— in future. “Our concern is whether Taipei can accommodate 20,000 foreign guests from more than 100 countries at the same time,” he said. If the government helped out, more doctors would be introduced to Taiwan’s achievements in the field of obstetrics and gynecology, he said.
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