CULTURE
Dance troupe to go on tour
National Taiwan University of Arts’s Grand View Dance Troupe is to tour India, Indonesia and Malaysia from Saturday next week through Aug. 5 as part of the government’s New Southbound Policy. Paul Chang (張國葆), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of International Information Services, on Tuesday said that the three countries have their own unique cultures and such programs seek to enhance understanding and deepen friendships through artistic exchanges. The policy emphasizes two-way communication, Chang said, also expressing the hope that cultural exchanges would allow the peoples of South and Southeast Asia to learn more about the diverse culture of Taiwan. The ministry said it is working closely with the nation’s representative offices in New Delhi, Chennai, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur to invite local dignitaries and people from all walks of life to attend the performances.
EDUCATION
NTU System inks deal
The National Taiwan University (NTU) System which comprises NTU, National Taiwan Normal University and National Taiwan University of Science, has signed a cooperation memorandum with Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City. The memorandum was signed at the Vietnamese university, NTU System president Chang Ching-ray (張慶瑞) said on Monday. The two sides agreed on many cooperative programs and the promotion of exchanges of students and teachers, and also promised to conduct joint academic research and set up scholarships, Chang said. He said the deal is an important accord on academic cooperation between the higher education sectors of the two nations.
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