POLITICS
WHA ministers assembled
Minister of Health and Welfare-designate Lin Tzou-yien (林奏延) is scheduled to depart on Friday next week for Geneva, Switzerland, to attend this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA), which opens on May 23. Lin is to lead a delegation of 15 senior officials and nine assistants, ministry spokesman Wang Che-chao (王哲超) said. The officials include Centers for Disease Control Director-General Steve Kuo (郭旭崧), Health Promotion Administration Director-General Chiou Shu-ti (邱淑媞), Department of Medical Affairs Director-General Wang Tsung-hsi (王宗曦), Department of Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy Director-General Silver Huang (黃怡超), Department of Mental and Oral Health Director-General Chen Li-chung (諶立中) and department of Nursing and Healthcare Director-General Yu Li-hui (游麗惠).
DIPLOMACY
Fort McMurray offered relief
Taiwan has donated C$60,000 (US$46,634) to wildfire-engulfed Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. Taiwan’s Representative to Canada Wu Rong-chuan (吳榮泉) presented the donation to Canadian Red Cross president and chief executive Conrad Sauve on behalf of the government earlier this week. Wu conveyed the nation’s sincere sympathy for those affected by the wildfires in Fort McMurray and expressed his admiration for the cooperation of the Canadian government and people in the relief operation. Sauve expressed thanks for the goodwill from Taiwan and said the donation illustrates the friendship between the two nations. According to a BBC report on Tuesday, wildfires have destroyed 2,400 out of 25,000 structures in the city since they broke out last week.
SOCIETY
Wood sculptures wanted
The Miaoli County Government’s International Culture and Tourism Bureau has called for entries into this year’s Taiwan International Wood Sculpture Competition. Domestic and foreign artists are welcome to enter the competition, which is aimed at enhancing international cultural exchanges and promoting innovation in the art of woodcarving, the bureau said. Sanyi (三義), a rural township, has gained internationally renown for its wood sculpture since the 1960s. All submissions for the competition must be original and must have been created within the past two years, the event organizer said. Two sponsored prizes of NT$500,000 will be awarded. First, second and third place will be awarded NT$500,000, NT$300,000 and NT$200,000 respectively. Three prizes of NT$100,000 will also be given to highly commended works. Submissions for domestic artists are open from June 10 to June 12, while those for foreign artists have already begun and are open until June 8, the bureau said.
CRIME
Joint efforts working
Taiwan and Indonesia have been successful in joint efforts to crack down on cross-border fraud rings, an Indonesian police official said yesterday. Taiwanese police have been providing their Indonesian counterparts with timely and useful intelligence that has led to the arrest of suspects involved in fraud rings, including Taiwanese, said Krishna Murti, head of the Jakarta police criminal investigation unit. Krishna cited a joint operation in August last year in which more than 90 fraud suspects, including 82 from Taiwan, were arrested, as an example of the bilateral cooperation. He said the two sides have become better coordinated and hopes that Taiwan and Indonesia can continue to work together.
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