DIPLOMATIC
US official in security visit
US Department of Homeland Security Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs Mark Koumans will visit Taiwan tomorrow until Thursday, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) announced yesterday.The AIT said in a press release that Koumans will deliver a speech at the 2012 International Conference on Homeland Security on Wednesday, to be hosted by the Executive Yuan’s Office of Homeland Security to discuss cross-border cooperation. Koumans also plans to hold a series of high-level meetings with local officials to discuss security issues of importance to both sides, it said. Koumans is responsible for coordinating the department’s international programs and policy to achieve its international strategic objectives, including promoting greater international information and education exchanges in order to share data, technologies, and best practices relating to homeland security, the AIT said.
SOCIETY
Taipei hosts noodle festival
The annual Taipei International Beef Noodle Festival opens today with the aim of promoting the much-loved dish and creating commercial opportunities, according to the organizers. Now in its eighth year, the festival features a beef noodle competition, a gallery describing the dish’s history and an area for vendors where visitors can get a bite to eat, the Taipei City Government said. Described by Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) as the city’s “business card,” the dish created revenues of more than NT$1 billion (US$34 million) last year, compared with NT$780 million in 2008. The free festival, which runs until tomorrow, will take place at the Taipei Expo Park. For more information, go to the Web site at www.2012tbnf.com.
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