The Cabinet yesterday approved a proposal by the National Communications Commission (NCC) to develop the fourth-generation (4G) mobile broadband network after the service is inaugurated next year.
Minister Without Portfolio Simon Chang (張善政) said the government would earmark NT$20 billion (US$675.8 million) to help the industry, including a project to encourage service providers to install base stations in remote areas to help reduce the urban-rural digital divide.
The Cabinet also approved a proposed six-year fund of NT$60 billion for flood control, continuing the eight-year NT$116 billion flood prevention and water management program begun in 2006.
Under the proposal, the government would finance the fund either by taking out loans or selling publicly owned shares, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Woody Duh (杜紫軍) told a press conference held following the weekly Cabinet meeting.
Heavy rains brought by two typhoons in early September caused extensive damage in mountainous and plains regions in the south, prompting local governments to ask the central government to budget a new flood control plan that would take up where the eight-year project, which ends this year, leaves off.
The Cabinet also decided to send back an amendment to the Organ Transplant Act (人體器官移植條例) to the Ministry of Health and Welfare for further consultations after Cabinet members were divided over articles regarding organs harvested from convicted prisoners, Executive Yuan spokesperson Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said.
The act now allows organ harvesting from dead inmates as long as the inmates gave their prior agreement and made the decision of their own free will.
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