TRANSPORT
Light rail to run more often
Starting next month, trains on the Danhai Light Rail Transit system in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) would run more frequently during peak travel hours, New Taipei Metro Corp said. Every day, from 6pm to 8pm, the trains would depart every 12 minutes instead of every 15 minutes, the operator said. This would help reduce congestion on the Danhai Line, the ridership of which has been growing since it was launched in December last year, New Taipei Metro general manager Wu Kuo-chi (吳國濟) said. New electronic billboards would also soon be installed at Hongshulin Station to display the arrival and departure times of the trains, the operator said.
DIPLOMACY
Thai labor meeting held
Taiwan and Thailand agreed during a meeting in Taipei to tackle several key issues involving Thai workers in Taiwan, the Workforce Development Agency said on Friday. The consensus was reached at the 20th annual Taiwan-Thailand Labor Committee Meeting, hosted this year in Taiwan by agency director-general Huang Chiu-kuei (黃秋桂). The Thai delegation was led by Petcharat Sinauy, deputy permanent secretary at the Thai Ministry of Labor. Thailand agreed to use the latest materials provided by Taiwan for workers receiving job training in Thailand prior to their arrival, the agency said in a statement. The Southeast Asian nation would continue to educate its workers about drunk driving in Taiwan and the penalties that come with it, the statement said. Thailand also agreed to work with Taiwan to tackle the issue of Thais working illegally in the country, it said.
DIPLOMACY
Envoy throws first pitch
Representative to the US Stanley Kao (高碩泰) on Friday threw the ceremonial first pitch in a Major League Baseball game in Los Angeles, saying that it symbolized hope for stronger bilateral ties. Kao was in attendance for “Hello Taiwan Night,” an event organized by the Taiwanese-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Los Angeles, and the stadium featured electronic board messages supporting Taiwan throughout the game. Relations between the two nations have never been better, Kao said, citing the high-profile treatment extended by the US government during President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) stopovers there last month. “Taiwan-US relations will only get better,” Kao said to Taiwanese media at the game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres. He also thanked the about 400 Taiwanese expatriates who attended the game.
HEALTH
Woman fined for pet cruelty
A dog owner in Keelung was fined NT$6,000 for leaving her dog unattended on the roof of a building on a hot day, Keelung Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office Director Chen Jui-pin (陳瑞濱) said yesterday. Responding to a call about possible animal abuse, officials on Tuesday found the canine chained to the roof of the apartment complex, which infrared measurements showed had reached 61°C, Chen said. The dog was fine, he added. The dog owner expressed remorse and claimed that she had forgotten about the dog because she was taking care of her infant, Chen said, adding that the office decided to issue her a fine because she had previously received a warning over her treatment of the dog. Dogs are susceptible to heatstroke, as they lack sweat glands, and should never be kept on an apartment building roof, he 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