SOCIETY
Boat book fair canceled
A visit by the Germany-registered passenger ship Logos Hope’s to Taiwan to stage a book fair has been canceled, a spokesman for the event’s organizers said. James Chen (陳進理) said in a news release that the ship was forced to give up the visit after experiencing mechanical issues on Friday night on its way from Hong Kong. The ship, carrying 400 volunteer crew members from 56 countries, returned safely to Hong Kong on Saturday. Chen said that since repairs could take between 10 days and two weeks, the event had to be canceled. The book fair had been scheduled to take place at Keelung Port from today until Jan. 20.
DIPLOMACY
US House official to visit
The new chairman of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs will lead a congressional delegation to visit the nation later this month to discuss bilateral ties and regional security. Republican Representative Ed Royce is scheduled to arrive for a three-day visit on Jan. 26, said Bruce Linghu (令狐榮達), director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of North American Affairs. The delegation will meet with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and officials from the ministries of foreign affairs, economic affairs, national defense and others to discuss issues including Taipei-Washington ties, Taiwan-China relations and regional peace, Linghu said. Taiwan is one of the destinations in Royce’s trip to the region, which follows his taking over as the chairman of the committee earlier this month, Linghu said. Royce succeeded Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
TECHNOLOGY
University makes digital pen
National Cheng Kung University has developed a digital pen that allows users to change brush strokes and colors with a single pen while drawing on a computer screen. Users can change color, brush thickness and medium style, such as watercolor or crayon, by rotating or pressing the pen, or changing the angle at which it is held, the university said. The pen, which can be used on tablet computers, is convenient because users do not have to change the paint functions manually on the computer, said Wu Fong-gong (吳豐光), an industrial design professor at the university, who led the research team. He said the pen could also make drawing more enjoyable for children since it offers multiple types of pen strokes. The team has received a patent for its invention in China and is currently applying for one in Taiwan, the university said.
CULTURE
Yuan Dynasty art displayed
A series of portraits of emperors and consorts in China’s Yuan Dynasty are being exhibited at the National Palace Museum in Taipei to mark the 850th birthday of the dynasty’s first emperor, Genghis Khan, the museum said. The five imperial portraits, including paintings of Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan, will be on display until March 25 as part of the exhibition “The Art and Aesthetics of Form: Selections from the History of Chinese Painting.” Monogolian Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Tumenjargal Magaadai will lead a delegation on a visit to the museum tomorrow to mark the event, the museum said. The Ulan Bator Trade and Economic Office in Taipei will also arrange to have Mongolian masters sing traditional folk songs and play the morin khuur, a traditional Mongolian bowed stringed instrument, at the event.
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