AGRICULTURE
Haiti aid program planned
Taiwan will launch an agricultural aid program in southern Haiti to continue its assistance to the Caribbean country, an official at a government-funded agency said yesterday. The program is set to be implemented in Les Cayes in southern Haiti, to help people grow crops such as rice and corn, according to the Taipei-based International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF). Since a magnitude 7 quake struck Haiti in January 2010, Taiwan has been offering vocational training in Savane Diane in northern Haiti and helping residents grow crops such as corn and sorghum, ICDF deputy secretary-general Lee Pai-po (李柏浡) said. Taiwan also recently completed construction of a resettlement village in Savane Diane to house 215 families that lost their homes in the 2010 earthquake. The farming project, spread over 322.5 hectares, is expected to be completed by the end of this year, Lee said.
TECHNOLOGY
Man makes app for crops
An Android app designed to calculate the exact amount of fertilizer needed to be applied to crops has been created by a Taiwanese man who is performing his alternative military service with a technical mission in Belize. Lai Chun-fa (賴俊發), who graduated from the Department of Information Management at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, said the idea was inspired by Cheng Kun-mu (鄭坤木), a technician with a Taiwanese agricultural technical mission who has been helping local farmers in the Central American nation for several years. The main purpose of the app is to help technicians promote the concept of using fertilizer among local framers. Use of the app allows technicians to calculate the exact amount of fertilizer farmers need to apply to different crops, which could greatly reduce costs and time, he said.
DEFENSE
Taiping antenna almost built
Construction of a new navigation antenna on Taiping Island (太平島) in the disputed South China Sea is set to be finished next month, according to military officials. The antenna will be located near an existing 1,200m airstrip on the islet. When finished, the 7m antenna will allow an increase in the number of flights to the island, where military transport planes are often forced to abort landings because of poor visibility, the officials said. Taiping Island is the largest isle in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which is also claimed by China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei.
CRIME
Manila arrests Taiwanese
Philippine police yesterday rounded up 357 foreigners accused of duping Taiwanese and Chinese citizens in an online scam. The mostly Chinese and Taiwanese suspects were arrested in simultaneous raids on 20 houses in metropolitan Manila and nearby Antipolo city, Philippine National Police investigation group chief Samuel Pagdilao said. Those arrested were members of a syndicate that pretended to represent police, prosecutors, courts and insurance companies and told the victims that their bank accounts were being used for money laundering and terrorist financing, he said. He said the victims were pressured to transfer their money to a “safe account” provided by the syndicate. The syndicate raked in at least US$472,000 each day using the scam, he said. Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission head Paquito Ochoa said the arrests were the largest single-day operation against organized crime in the country.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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