SOCIAL WELFARE
Groups increase by 20,000
The number of social service and charity groups has grown significantly over the past decade, suggesting the public is paying more attention to social welfare issues, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. As of the end of June, there were 54,592 civic groups in the nation, the ministry said. A total of 43,351 are social service and charity groups, an increase of 20,000 from a decade ago. Charity groups, including food banks, make up 13,288, an increase of 5,500. There were also 10,947 occupational associations and 294 political groups, accounting for roughly 20 percent and 0.5 percent respectively. These did not grow at as fast a rate as social welfare and charity groups.
ENVIRONMENT
Butterfly festival launched
The Maolin National Scenic Area yesterday launched the 2014-2015 Taiwan Maolin Purple Butterfly Valley Festival, inviting visitors to witness the migration of hundreds of thousands of purple crow butterflies (Euploea tulliolus) that fill the sky above Maolin Valley in Greater Kaohsiung’s Maolin District (茂林). According to the scenic area administration, the migration, in which the butterflies move south for the winter, is emulated only by the annual monarch butterfly migration in the Central Mexican valleys, and is worthy of World Heritage status. The event is to continue for five months and be held in parallel with the Wanshan Warrior Rite on Saturday next week and the Tapakarhavae (Black Rice) Festival on Nov. 22 and 23 — both events aimed at promoting aboriginal culture.
TRAVEL
Orange alert for Turkey
The nation has issued an orange-level travel alert for southeastern parts of Turkey after pro-Kurdish protests there turned violent, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which urged Taiwanese nationals to avoid unnecessary travel to that area. The ministry raised the travel alert for that area to orange from yellow, while a yellow-level alert remained in effect for other areas in the country, the ministry’s Bureau of Consular Affairs said in a statement late on Friday. The ministry also urged those who need to travel to Turkey to be on high alert regarding their personal safety and to avoid crowded areas and places where protests are staged. Under the Foreign Ministry’s four-color travel alert system, red represents the highest level of warning. Orange is the second-highest level, followed by yellow and then gray.
INNOVATION
Taiwan dominates at show
Taiwanese inventors have grabbed 38 gold, 33 silver and seven bronze medals at this year’s International Warsaw Invention Show in Poland. Wu Chih-yao (吳智堯), secretary-general of the Taipei-based Chinese Innovation and Invention Society and leader of the Taiwanese delegation, said that many of the inventions won recognition because they were practical and catered to people’s needs. The group introduced some of the winning works, such as a portable camping lamp that can play music, and a mobile power pack. It also presented a self-cleaning animal litter pan that not only stays clean, but also comes with a training function that gives voice instructions. The group noted that many of the delegates were students from high schools or technology universities, who displayed immense inventing potential. More than 400 works from 24 nations took part in the show from Tuesday to Thursday last week.
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