EDUCATION
Ma to teach at Soochow
Former President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has accepted an honorary teaching position at Soochow University, the school said yesterday. The letter of appointment as a chair professor of law was handed to Ma by Soochow University president Pan Wei-ta (潘維大) on Thursday, it said. Ma will start teaching next month and will take three or four sessions, the university said. Ma will give lectures on international law, international relations, cross-strait relations, contemporary Taiwanese history and other subjects, it said. The course is a non-credit program and is open to students and faculty members who can register online, it added.
HEALTH
Hearing loss tops list
Hearing loss was the most common occupational disease in Taiwan last year, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Labor yesterday. Hospitals and occupational disease prevention centers around Taiwan reported a total of 2,242 cases of occupational diseases last year, the ministry said. Hearing loss topped the list for the third year in a row, with 1,294 cases, or 57.7 percent of all reported cases, the ministry said. It was followed by musculoskeletal disorders with 610 cases, or 27.2 percent of all work-related illnesses, ministry statistics showed. The third most common occupational illness was skin disease with 117 cases, or 5.2 percent of the total. Occupational hearing loss is seen mostly in the textile and metal parts assembly industries, the ministry said. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders are often caused by repetitive motion, heavy lifting and use of excessive force to perform tasks, it added.
DRUGS
Taiwanese held in Jakarta
Indonesian police on Thursday arrested five Taiwanese suspects in a raid on a private residence in Jakarta, where they found 60kg of methamphetamine, Indonesian authorities said. Investigators have said that the drug was supplied by a crime ring based in Taiwan, Indonesian National Police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar said. Police also arrested an Indonesian during the raid in Ancol, North Jakarta, he said. It is not the first time that Taiwanese drug suspects have been arrested in Indonesia, a nation where the maximum penalty for drug offenses is death.
DIPLOMACY
Tsai urges Seoul relations
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Thursday called for regular senior-level exchanges between Taiwan and South Korea, which she said share a common interest in maintaining stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Meeting a group of South Korean lawmakers at the Presidential Office, Tsai also urged the South Koreans to support Taiwan’s bid to join the International Civil Aviation Organization to ensure air travel safety, as about 200 weekly flights take place between the two nations. Taiwan and South Korea share experience in fighting for freedom and human rights, as well as having similar models of economic development, she told the lawmakers, including South Korean National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee member Hong Moon-jong. Tsai said there is ample room for the two nations to further improve their relations. Also at the meeting were South Korea’s representative to Taipei Cho Baek-sang, Presidential Office Secretary-General Lin Bih-jaw (林碧炤) and Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Chen-jan (李澄然).
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