The nation’s aging index at the end of December last year was 105.7, showing that seniors still outnumber young people, according to Ministry of the Interior (MOI) figures published on Saturday.
The index measures the number of people aged 65 and older for every 100 people under the age of 15.
The figure indicates that Taiwan has 3.26 million people aged 65 and older, representing 13.86 percent of the total population, while 3.09 million people are younger than 15, or 13.12 percent of the total.
An index above 100 means there are more seniors than young people, the ministry said, adding that it first passed the mark in February last year.
Of the nation’s 22 cities and counties, the three places where seniors account for the highest percentage of the population remained Chiayi County (18.46 percent), Yunlin County (17.55 percent) and Nantou County (16.52 percent), all slightly higher than in September last year, the Department of Statistics said.
At this rate, it is likely that people aged 65 and older will make up 20 percent of the population by 2026, which would make Taiwan a “hyper-aged” society, it said.
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:
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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