FOREIGN AFFAIRS
New envoy for Eswatini
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said that it would send a new ambassador to Eswatini later this month to fill the vacancy left by Thomas Chen (陳經銓), who returned to Taiwan last month because of health issues. Jeremy Liang (梁洪昇), head of the ministry’s Department of Protocol, is to assume the post later this month, Department of West Asia and African Affairs Deputy Director-General Grace Lo (羅靜如) said. Chen was found seriously ill in his office on June 22. He was taken to a hospital in South Africa for treatment, before being sent back to an Eswatini hospital on June 29. After recovering, he returned to Taipei last month, where he remains hospitalized, Lo said. Former ministry secretary-general Tsai Ming-yaw (蔡明耀) has been serving as special envoy in Chen’s absence.
HEALTH
Local dengue case in Taipei
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday confirmed the city’s first indigenous case of dengue fever this year. A woman, from Wenshan District (文山), began suffering from a fever and diarrhea on Sunday. She sought medical treatment the following day and was later diagnosed with dengue fever and hospitalized. The woman had not traveled abroad in the past 12 months, but had visited an area in New Taipei City where dengue fever had been reported, the department said. Local health authorities have inspected the 488 families who live in the same building as the woman, but found no other people with similar symptoms. They have also investigated the density of vector mosquitoes in places where the woman had stayed for more than two hours, as well as neighboring areas within 100m, with the hope of finding the source of infection. Taipei Zoo and Xiangshan area have been disinfected because the woman had stayed there for more than two hours during the incubation period, they added.
EDUCATION
New permit plan for students
Chinese students registered at Taiwanese universities would be able to apply online for multiple entry/exit permits on their own, instead of through their schools, starting on Sept. 1, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. It would take about two working days for the students to receive their permits if all the required documents are submitted, it said. Students from China, Hong Kong and Macau would also be allowed to apply for permit extensions, as well as to update their statuses online when transferring schools or pursuing a higher degree at another university, it said. The new system, which is on trial, would be available shortly for them to apply for the documents needed to study in Taiwan, it said.
FOREIGN RELATIONS
German envoy begins job
German Institute Taipei Director-General Thomas Prinz officially assumed office on Monday, his office announced. “I look forward to cooperating with our Taiwanese and foreign partners, as well as with the other German organizations in Taiwan,” Prinz was quoted as saying in a statement posted on the institute’s Web site. He replaced Martin Eberts, who left Taipei last week after four years as head of the institute. Prinz, who is expected to serve for at least four years in Taipei , was ambassador to Bangladesh from 2015 to last year. Born in 1959 in Wetzlar, Germany, he received a doctorate from the University of Heidelberg’s South Asia Institute.
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