SOCIETY
Japan says thanks with event
A festival to celebrate cultural exchanges between Taiwan and Japan is to be held on Friday and Saturday in Taipei to thank Taiwan for its humanitarian aid after a massive earthquake in Japan in 2011, the organizers said yesterday. “We hope to take the opportunity to thank Taiwan for its support of Japan after the earthquake,” the NHK Culture Center said, referring to the magnitude 9 quake that led to a tsunami that devastated northeastern Japan, killing thousands. It is the first time that the festival is being held in Taiwan. About 27 groups comprising a total 180 performers will present different aspects of Japanese culture, including origami, tea ceremonies and stone arts, at Huashan 1914 Creative Park, the center said, adding that there will also be live performances throughout the festival to give participants the opportunity to experience Japan’s diverse art forms through dance, music and martial arts.
EDUCATION
Math geniuses bag medals
Taiwanese students won three silver and two bronze medals at the Third Asian Science and Mathematics Olympiad for Primary School (ASMOPS) in Indonesia yesterday. The Taipei Fuhsing Private School students competed against 29 other teams from countries including the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia at the annual contest. In the nature science category, two junior high-school students Lu Hung-wei (呂紘瑋) and Tsai Meng-che (蔡孟哲) each won a silver medal, while Shen Hsin-zu (沈歆慈) and Hu Yun-hsiang (胡運翔), two sixth-graders at Fuhsing Elementary School, both won a bronze medal. Elementary student Wu Hua-yu (吳驊佑), bagged a silver medal in the math event.
DIPLOMACY
Typhoon aid for Palau
The government has donated US$100,000 to Palau to help with its reconstruction work after the Western Pacific nation was hit by Typhoon Haiyan last week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Taiwan’s embassy in Palau made the donation on behalf of the government and its people, the ministry said. A state of emergency had been declared for the island country of 21,000 residents after it was battered on Wednesday and Thursday last week by powerful winds and downpours brought by Haiyan, the ministry said. The storm caused an estimated US$5 million in damages to infrastructure and schools, it said.
DIPLOMACY
Arizona agreement signed
Greater Tainan and the US state of Arizona signed a friendship agreement on Tuesday to establish regular exchanges in business and tourism. The deal ranges from enterprise assistance to sports cooperation and includes pledges to work together on renewable energy, tourism promotion and academics, according to a statement released by the Greater Tainan Government, adding that this is the first agreement inked between a municipality in Taiwan and a state government in the US. Arizona Governor Janice Brewer, who is on a week-long visit to Taiwan, said the agreement will help Arizonans get to know Tainan. Taiwan is Arizona’s 13th-largest export trade partner and seventh-largest import trade partner, according to the governor’s office. Last year, Arizona exported more than US$320 million of products and goods to Taiwan, including machinery, electrical equipment and medical instruments, while its imports from the nation totaled more than US$530 million, the governor’s office said.
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