WEATHER
Landslides in Nantou County
Several landslides occurred yesterday in Nantou County on a provincial highway and the road around the Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) tourist area, but no casualties were reported. The landslides were caused by heavy rains that started early in the morning, officials from the -Directorate-General of Highways said. As of noon, the accumulated rainfall in Renai Township (仁愛), Auwanda (奧萬大) and Yuchih Township (魚池) had reached more than 120mm, exceeding the standard definition of torrential rain, the Central Weather Bureau said. The landslides occurred at the 67km mark on Taiwan Provincial Highway No. 14 and at the 1.5km, 11km and 17km markers on the Sun Moon Lake circle road, partly blocking traffic, officials said.
EDUCATION
Agency denies banquet ban
The Agency Against Corruption yesterday denied local media reports that it had banned public school teachers from attending graduation banquets. Agency spokesman Chang Hung-mo (張宏謀) told a press conference that graduation banquets for teachers were part of a long tradition in schools during the graduation season and the agency had not sought to ban the practice. Chang said the agency had only warned teachers not to attend banquets at inappropriate times or at expensive restaurants. Local media reported yesterday that in a guidance notebook distributed to 210,000 public school teachers, the agency instructed them not to attend graduation banquets because of the possibility of conflicts of interest.
FOOD
Offical attends APEC meet
Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基) left yesterday for Kazan, Russia, where he will attend the second APEC ministerial meeting on food security, the council said. During the two-day meeting which will be held tomorrow and Thursday, Chen will deliver an address on whatTaipei has done to promote food safety, while sharing Taiwan’s experiences in boosting agricultural output, attracting investment in agriculture, securing food supplies for disadvantaged groups and fighting against illegal fishing, the statement said. Chen, who is heading a delegation composed of officials from the council, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Department of Health, will also discuss ways to maintain food security in the region, the statement added. Chen will also hold bilateral talks with officials from the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Philippines, exchanging views on issues of mutual concern.
HEALTH
BNHI proposes hospital plan
The Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) proposed a NT$670 million (US$22.6 million) plan yesterday that it hopes will improve medical services in remote areas. The bureau intends to allocate the money to areas that are interested in improving their emergency services and departments of internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, gynecology and pediatrics. Division chief Tsai Shu-ling (蔡淑鈴) said that with more complete services, the hospitals would save residents the time and money they spend traveling to urban areas for treatment at better-equipped hospitals. Hospitals that successfully apply for funding will be able to provide round-the-clock emergency services, improve outpatient care in each of the four major medical departments, strengthen inpatient care and send people to local communities to offer preventive health care services. Tsai said 78 hospitals have currently qualified for funding.
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