FOOD
Stinky tofu tops survey
Stinky tofu has been voted the most popular food in Taipei’s night markets in an online survey released on Saturday by the Taipei City Market Administration Office. The survey asked participants to choose their 10 favorite foods sold at Taipei’s night markets from a list of 33 items, collecting 17,000 votes. Stinky tofu topped the list with 1,482 votes, followed by oyster omelette with 1,279 votes and fried chicken fillet with 1,025 votes, according to the survey. Rounding out the top 10 were popcorn chicken, bubble tea, sweet potato balls, pork ribs stewed with Chinese medicinal herbs, tofu pudding, oyster vermicelli with pig intestines and steak. Stinky tofu, noted for its strong odor and taste, is tofu marinated in brine made from fermented milk, vegetables and meat.
TRAVEL
Canada raises program quota
More Taiwanese would be able to participate in working holiday programs in Canada this year after the nation raised its quota for Taiwanese participants from 1,000 to 1,200, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The Canadian government raised the quota for the remainder of this year due to an enthusiastic response, the ministry said in a press release, adding that Taiwanese interested in the program can still submit applications. The working holiday agreement between the two nations took effect in 2010. Under the program, people aged from 18 to 35 from the two nations can travel and work in the other nation for up to one year.
SOCIETY
Alian radio to go on air
The first nationwide Aboriginal radio station is to start broadcasting tomorrow, airing content in 16 Aboriginal languages. The Alian 96.3 radio station, operated by the Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation, is to feature 15 programs on a wide range of topics, including music and entertainment, cooking, social care, tourism, parental education, arts, sports and healthcare, according to the foundation’s Web site. The radio station will work with voice actors and Aboriginal language teachers, the foundation said. Alian means “good friends” in Paiwan, the foundation said, expressing hope that the radio station will become “good friends” with Taiwanese, spur conversations about Aboriginal issues and promote the Aboriginal cultures. The station is expected to reach more than 90 percent of the nation’s Aboriginal villages and more than 70 percent of its Aboriginal population.
CRIME
Soldiers pass heroin test
The Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office has decided not to press charges of drug use against 10 soldiers and officers stationed at Ching Chuan Kang Air Base after they tested negative for heroin. The prosecutors are trying to find the source of 53 packages of amphetamines found in different parts of the base in February, the office said yesterday. The packages were scattered over a 2km stretch on the base, the office said. Following the find, the Ministry of National Defense ordered all 2,555 soldiers and officers stationed on the base to undergo urine tests for drugs. Ten people tested positive for heroin, but they denied using the drug. Prosecutors collected hair samples for an advanced examination at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, which found no trace of heroin in the samples. The institute said the positive results could be caused by a cold medicine.
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