SOCIETY
Priest wins language award
A Catholic priest from France who spent more than 40 years compiling an Amis-French dictionary won an award for outstanding contribution in promoting Aboriginal languages, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. Maurice Poinsot, 83, began doing missionary work in Hualien County’s Yuli Township (玉里) when he was 27 years old. He learned Mandarin, Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), Hakka and Amis to assimilate into the communities. To help other priests learn the Amis language, Poinsot and now-deceased father Louis Pourrias began to compile an Amis-French dictionary, going to Amis villages to conduct research. The dictionary, which mainly records the Amis language in central Hualien and along the east coast, remains an important reference book for studying the Amis language, the ministry said. Huang Meei-jin (黃美金), a professor in the Department of Applied Foreign Languages at Shih Chien University, was also recognized for her efforts in preserving Aboriginal languages.
HEALTH
New dengue deaths reported
Eleven new deaths caused by dengue hemorrhagic fever have taken the death toll to 195 since the outbreak began in May, the Central Epidemic Command Center said yesterday. Among the 11 was a 29-year-old man with cerebral palsy, the youngest person reported to have died from the disease so far this year, it said. The deaths were recorded over the past week in Kaohsiung. They involved six men and five women aged between 29 and 84, the center said, adding that another 24 deaths are being examined to determine whether they were also caused by the disease.
CRIME
Men arrested over batteries
Police in Kaohsiung have arrested two men for allegedly importing fake iPhone batteries and cables from China, while officers raided stores in the southern city that were allegedly selling the products, authorities said yesterday. Acting on tips from the public, police conducted an investigation and searched several stores in Kaohsiung in October. They discovered more than 1,500 fake iPhone parts with a market value of NT$5 million (US$151,345), and arrested two suspects surnamed Lin and Lee. The suspects allegedly imported the fake batteries and cables from Chinese companies. The parts for iPhone 5, 5S and 6 models look almost the same as genuine ones and also came with fake serial number stickers, police said. The fake parts were sold at 80 percent of the price of genuine iPhone parts, police said.
SOCIETY
Weight-loss success touted
More than 8,600 people in Chiayi City this year participated in an annual weight-loss program organized by the city’s Bureau of Health, shedding a combined total of 16 tonnes, the bureau said on Monday. The program had a target of 9.5 tonnes, but the result far exceeded expectations, the bureau said. The program was designed to help participants lose weight on their own, with participants entered into group and individual competitions. Their weights were measured before and after their participation in the events. The person who shed the most weight was a man who lost 24kg in five months, it said. He is to share his experiences in the program at an awards ceremony today, the bureau said. More than 45 percent of adults in the city are overweight or obese, while seven of the top 10 leading causes of death in Chiayi last year were related to obesity, the bureau 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