CHARITY
Cleft lip program launched
Several organizations have launched a program to allow 150 Vietnamese with cleft lips or cleft palates to be treated free of cost at a hospital in their home country, said the Noordhoff Craniofacial Foundation, which is leading the effort. The patients are to receive reconstructive surgery at Odonto Maxillo Facial Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City and the costs will be met under the financial program, a spokesman for the foundation said, adding that an education foundation in Taiwan and the hospital will also assemble a medical team to provide long-term care to impoverished patients with oral birth defects in the city. The foundation said it hopes the program will not only provide surgical intervention for Vietnamese patients, but will also offer an opportunity for Vietnamese doctors to learn from Taiwanese specialists.
TRADE
Rice exports to rise
Taiwan will export more rice this year than last year after securing orders through China’s lunchbox market, according to the Council of Agriculture. Chinese consumers can now enjoy rice grown in Taiwan as the Changhua-based Ting Hsin International Group has decided to sell lunchboxes using the rice through their 800 Family Mart convenience stores in China. Taiwan used to export rice to China in small packages only, and Ting Hsin’s move is likely to boost the country’s rice exports there, the council’s Agriculture and Food Agency said. Exports of the crop have increased substantially over the past four years, rising from 1,459 metric tonnes in 2010 to 2,718 tonnes last year, the agency said. During the first four months of this year, Taiwan exported 954 tonnes of rice. The nation now produces about 1.3 million tonnes of rice annually, the agency said.
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