EDUCATION
McGill to host academy
Montreal’s McGill University recently signed a letter of intent with Taiwan’s representative office in Canada to become a liaison for the Taiwan Academy in Canada. Representative to Canada David Lee (李大維) said McGill would be the third university in Canada to serve as a liaison for the Taiwan Academy following the University of Ottawa and University of Toronto. Taipei has promoted the Taiwan Academy as a way to build on Taiwan’s status as a center of Chinese culture and spread its diverse culture around the world. It has used Taiwan’s advanced information and digital technology to bring together Mandarin Chinese and traditional character instruction, Taiwan studies and Sinology research, and Taiwan’s diverse culture in a single platform, Lee said.
WEATHER
Warm, foggy skies expected
Taiwan is likely to see much warmer and drier weather today and tomorrow, but chances of fog will increase in several regions, the Central Weather Bureau said. As the strength of a cold air front weakens, daytime temperatures are expected to rise by 3°C and 5°C nationwide, with the stable weather pattern likely to last until tomorrow, the bureau said. Chances of rain should decrease in most parts of the country. However, the bureau said that the rising temperatures could bring higher chances of fog, especially in western Taiwan and Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu.
LABOR
Survey finds violations
Nearly 30 percent of polled businesses violated the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) last year, including branches of fast-food restaurant chains, a survey released by the Council of Labor Affairs said on Tuesday. Some 2,591 of the 8,713 firms polled were punished or reported to the authorities for violation of the act last year, the council said in a statement. The top three violators were KFC, McDonald’s and state-owned Chunghwa Post, recording 32, 29 and 21 violations respectively, for infractions such as not paying extra wages on holiday shifts and not correctly documenting shift times. Of the violators, 9.3 percent made their workers regularly work overtime, 9.2 percent did not pay workers for the extra hours and 4.6 percent lacked legally required shift records, the survey found. The businesses could face fines up to NT$300,000 for violations concerning overtime and lack of payment, the council said.
SPACE
Mars visible on Sunday
Mars is set to dominate the night sky on Sunday as it reaches its closest approach to Earth in more than two years, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said on Tuesday. The opposition of the red planet, an event which occurs when the Earth falls between the sun and Mars, will offer people the best view of Mars until 2014, the museum said. Although the scope of the celestial event, which happens about every 26 months, will be the smallest opposition of Mars during the period from 2001 to 2025, the museum said, the planet is still likely to be 10 times brighter than usual. In addition, it said observation conditions might be more ideal this year than in the past. “If we are lucky to have clear night skies, chances are high that the planet’s white polar caps will be visible,” said Chang Kuei-lan (張桂蘭), an assistant researcher at the museum. Even if astronomy buffs miss the chance on Sunday, Chang said, Mars will remain prominent during the next two months or so because it moves relatively slowly around the sun.
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