MILITARY
Air force sorry for delays
The Air Force Command Headquarters yesterday apologized after it canceled an Indigenous Defense Fighter jet training exercise that delayed six commercial flights for about an hour. According to an Air Force Command Headquarters statement, the jet pilot reported that the wheel at the nose of the landing gear was shaking during takeoff at 8:51am and aborted the exercise in accordance with standard operating procedure. The exercise was scheduled to take place at Penghu County’s Magong Airport, which doubles as a summer training base for the air force. Normal commercial flight operations were not resumed until 9:58am, causing a one-hour delay to six flights, said Huang Wei-hung (黃偉宏), head of flight operations at the airport.
EDUCATION
Indonesian students wooed
Taiwan is looking to double the number of Indonesian students attending local universities over the next three years, Deputy Minister of Education Yao Leeh-ter (姚立德) said yesterday. Yao, who is in Indonesia with representatives from 50 Taiwanese universities for the sixth annual Taiwan-Indonesia Higher Education Summit, said the ministry hopes the number of Indonesians studying in Taiwan doubles to 10,000 over the next three years. Yao said that Indonesian students have shown an increased interest in management, agriculture, tourism, services and environment-related studies, in line with the development of Indonesia’s economy. There are more than 5,000 Indonesian students in Taiwan. The summit is to run until Wednesday with fairs in Jakarta, Medan and Aceh.
CULTURE
TPAC, CND ink agreement
The Taipei Performing Arts Center (TPAC) and Centre National de la Danse (CND), a dance institution sponsored by the French Ministry of Culture, on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to further bolster their relationship. TPAC director Austin Wang (王孟超) and CND deputy managing director Aymar Crosnier signed the MOU at a ceremony in Taipei, pledging to expand development and exchanges. Both centers are to foster artistic dialogue and exploration, as well as facilitate mutual understanding and learning. The collaboration intends to allow students and professionals to enroll and participate in cross-educational courses, such as CND’s summer dance camp and TPAC’s annual Camping Asia activity.
ECONOMY
Athletes exchange NT $20m
Athletes, coaches and administrators at the Taipei Summer Universiade Athletes’ Village in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口) have exchanged more than NT$20 million (US$661,157) of foreign currency since Aug. 12. According to Taipei Fubon Bank, which is handling foreign exchange services at the village, NT$20.58 million was exchanged from Aug. 12 to Wednesday, with the US dollar and the euro the most commonly exchanged currencies. The bank said its two temporary branches at the Athletes’ Village, which accept US dollars, euros, yen, Hong Kong dollars and yuan, have been open from 9am to 9pm every day. However, due to strong demand, the two outlets have extended their hours, with tellers at the branches often closing after 10pm, the bank said. During the 12-day period, the bank has handled more than 3,600 currency exchange transactions at the village, about one for every three people at the village.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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