NATIONAL DEFENSE
Chinese drills monitored
With China to stage military drills in the Yellow Sea, the Ministry of National Defense yesterday said that all military movements in the area have been closely monitored to safeguard Taiwan’s safety. “The military has been monitoring and will continue to monitor all deployments of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in that area and in the waters and skies near Taiwan,” the ministry said in a statement. “The military is in full control of the situation in the areas around Taiwan and is ready to respond to any contingencies to ensure the safety of Taiwan and the region,” it said. It urged the public to remain calm and not panic over what it described as intentional intimidation. China earlier in the day said that it would stage naval military drills off Qingdao on the Shandong Peninsula in the Yellow Sea from 6pm yesterday to 6pm on Monday. The announcement came as President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is to depart on a nine-day visit to Paraguay and Belize tomorrow.
ECONOMY
Middle-aged work more
The nation’s labor force participation rate for people aged 45 to 64 was 62.82 percent last year, up 0.4 percent from 2016, Ministry of Labor data showed. Last year, about 6.95 million people in Taiwan were between the ages of 45 and 65, with about 4.366 million in the workforce, representing an increase of 46,000 people from 2016. According to the ministry’s July report, the labor force participation rate for that age group in the US last year was about 72 percent, while in South Korea and Japan, it was 75 percent and 81 percent, respectively. In Taiwan, the rate for males was 75.63 percent, higher than the 50.57 percent female labor force participation rate. However, it was the first time that the rate for older women exceeded 50 percent, the ministry said.
MUSIC
Taipei prepares for festival
The annual Sounds From the River Festival, to be held in Taipei’s historic Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area this month, is to feature water curtain shows and live music performances, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said. The festival is to start on Aug. 17 and run through Aug. 19, with a 60-second water curtain show and a fireworks display on Aug. 18 that is to last 5 minutes and 20 seconds, the department said. The length of the fireworks is significant, as the Chinese pronunciation of 5-2-0 sounds like “I love you,” it said. The festival is also to feature food and drinks from around the world, including kiln-baked pizzas and Cuban sandwiches, the department said.
ENVIRONMENT
Event cleans Yanliao Beach
More than 100 former and active alternative military personnel cleared trash from New Taipei City’s Yanliao Beach (鹽寮海灘) yesterday as part of an activity organized by the city’s Department of Civil Affairs. The event in the city’s Gongliao District (貢寮) was to raise public awareness about the coastal environment and the problem of marine debris. Volunteer Wang Li-ying (王立穎) said that he wanted to contribute his time to help preserve marine life and a clean beach environment. Wang, who completed his alternative military service, said that he learned about the activity from an old military colleague who is working at the city’s Legal Affairs Department. The 20 large sacks of garbage collected yesterday included discarded fishing nets, garbage bags and plastic bottles, all of which are hazardous to marine life, the department 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:
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