POLITICS
Group to observe elections
A civic group comprised of members from Asian democracies is scheduled to visit next week to observe Saturday’s legislative and presidential elections, the Taipei-based Civil Congress Watch (CCW) said yesterday. A delegation from the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL), an organization that has members from countries including Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia, will arrive in Taipei shortly before the elections, said the CCW, which joined the network this year. During their visit, the four or five delegates are scheduled to visit several places, such as the Central Election Commission (CEC), candidates’ campaign headquarters and the offices of think tanks. According to the ANFREL’s last report, the political education of Taiwan’s electorate was found to be insufficient, CCW board member Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華) said. Ku said he had not seen much improvement with regard to educating the electorate over the past four years and urged the CEC to make more effort.
DIPLOMACY
Sao Tome offers landing visa
Sao Tome and Principe has become the 126th country or region to grant visa-free entry or landing visas to Republic of China passport holders, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) announced yesterday. Starting yesterday, Taiwanese nationals entering the island nation are entitled to visa-on-arrival privileges for a stay of up to 30 days, the ministry said in a statement. Individuals holding diplomatic or official passports will be granted visa-free stays of up to 90 days, it added. The agreement is expected to most benefit Taiwanese traveling in Europe who may be interested in making a side trip to Sao Tome and Principe, located just off the coast of Gabon, the statement said. Taiwan gained visa-free access to 35 nations or regions in Europe on Jan. 11 last year.
FOOD
Hotpot sales take off
The recent cold spell helped boost hotpot restaurant sales by about 20 percent this week, according to members of the food industry. The King Duck restaurant chain, which operates 71 stores nationwide, has seen its business grow significantly since the New Year, according to Tien Tzu-ting (田紫婷), assistant vice president of the company. Wang Yi-shan (王益珊), the head of 12 Sabu, a hotpot restaurant chain run by Wowprime Corp, said that although its stores were normally packed with crowds, the recent cold front had helped business even more as sales grew by 3 to 5 percent during off peak hours between 9pm and 11pm this week. In addition, packages of frozen hotpot ingredients were also selling well, according to Long Fong Foods Co marketing manager Wang Yung-chiang (王永強), who said sales over the recent cold spell were up by 250 percent.
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