CHARITY
Red Cross on standby
The Red Cross Society of the Republic of China said yesterday it has donated US$50,000 to its US counterpart to help with relief operations after Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc in New York City and several states on the US east coast. The charity also said it has asked local search-and-rescue teams and medical service staff to be on standby in the wake of a magnitude 7.4 earthquake that struck off the Pacific coast of Guatemala on Wednesday, leaving at least 52 people dead and 22 others missing. It added it has informed the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) of its willingness to help with post-quake relief operations in the Central American country, one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies. “We have activated our emergency response mechanism and will offer timely aid upon notice from the IFRC,” the charity said in a statement yesterday.
CHARITY
Rummage sale at TAS
The Taipei American School (TAS) Orphanage Club is to hold its semi-annual rummage sale and flea market in the school’s lobby and forecourt today, starting at 10am, rain or shine. The flea market will end at 3pm, while the rummage sale will continue until 5pm. Items in the rummage sale include clothing, toys, household items, artwork, consumer electronics, sports equipment and much more. There is no admission fee and all of the proceeds from the sale benefit needy children and orphans in Taiwan and overseas. There will also be Indonesian and Indian food for sale. The school is located at 800, Zhongshan N Rd Sec 6, Tianmu (天母), Taipei.
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