FOREIGN AFFAIRS
More aid to Indonesia
The government on Tuesday donated an additional US$355,722 to Indonesia to help with school reconstruction efforts in the wake of a magnitude 7.5 earthquake that hit Sulawesi on Sept. 28 last year, triggering a tsunami that left about 2,200 people dead. Representative to Indonesia John Chen (陳忠) made the donation in Jakarta to Indonesian Red Cross Society acting chairman Ginandjar Kartasasmita, who said that it would be used to help rebuild two schools. The public and private sectors had donated about US$2.35 million to assist post-disaster relief work and aid in the reconstruction of homes affected by the catastrophe, Chen said. The government decided to make the additional donation to support the relief efforts and help victims resume a normal life as soon as possible, he said. The Indonesian Red Cross Society said that about 1,200 schools, more than 260,000 students and 17,000 teachers were affected by the disaster.
FISHERIES
Six saved from burning boat
Six crewmen aboard a fishing boat based out of Yilan County were rescued at sea on Tuesday after they were forced to abandon ship when it caught fire, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement. The Suao Township (蘇澳)-registered Hsin Chin Fa No. 6 was reported to be on fire at 11:23am, when it was 19 nautical miles (35.2km) off Nanao Township (南澳), the statement said. The boat’s crew — two Taiwanese, three Indonesians and one Chinese — jumped overboard after discovering the fire, the coast guard said. Five of the crew were later rescued by a coast guard vessel, while an Indonesian crewman was airlifted to safety by helicopter, it added.
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