■ Health
Children's livers at risk
Liver disease is one of the major causes of death among children in Taiwan, according to the Children's Liver Foundation. Liver diseases claim some 10,000 lives every year in this country, where there are an estimated 3 million hepatitis B virus carriers and another 300,000 hepatitis C virus carriers, statistics made available by the foundation yesterday show. Adults are not the only ones at risk; liver diseases are also rather common among children, officials from the foundation said.
■ Disaster Relief
Millions of dollars received
The Ministry of the Interior said yesterday that it has received more than NT$276.07 million (US$8.11 million) in donations as of Monday for Tropical Storm Mindulle relief. Ministry officials said that since the ministry set up a special account to receive donations on July 5, money has continued to flow in. The ministry has also received various kinds of relief materials, such as of electric ovens, washers and refrigerators, the officials added. Tropical Storm Mindulle, which hit Taiwan July 2, brought torrential rains that triggered serious flooding and landslides in many mountainous areas in central Taiwan.
■ Weather
Typhoon Rananim nears
The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) may issue land and sea typhoon warnings for Typhoon Rananim if its velocity and direction of remained unchanged. As of press time last night, this tropical storm, moving towards the direction of northwest at 13kph, had been declared as a typhoon due to its increasing velocity. The CWB warned fishing vessels operating off eastern seaboard and along southern seafront of the Ryukyu chain to be aware of the latest weather reports. As a result of the nearby typhoon, northern, northeastern and eastern regions of Taiwan may experience sporadic rains today, while the mountainous region in northwest may experience heavier rainfalls.
■ Tourism
Ecology project planned
Twenty volunteers from Taiwan and Japan will take part in an activity to enhance the ecology in an area in Taitung Country, the first program of its kind in Taiwan, the Taiwan Environmental Information Association said yesterday. Association officials said the volunteers will work in Lichia forest to create a small artificial wetland to help residents there with their wastewater from Aug. 15 to 18. The officials noted that the "eco-working holiday" programs have been undertaken for years in Japan and Britain.
■ Diplomacy
Deputy to leave post
Deputy Representative to the US, Lee Chen-hsiung (李辰雄), will leave his post in Washington at the end of this month and return to Taiwan. Lee said in a recent farewell banquet given in his honor that he was very happy to serve overseas Taiwanese expatriates during the past year. Lee, who graduated from the Department of Law from National Taiwan University, has served in the diplomatic field for more than three decades. He had been ambassador to Gambia and director-general of the Department of African Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Lee, who assumed the deputy representative in June last year, will be reassigned to work in the foreign ministry and his vacancy will be filled by Stanley Kao (高碩泰), who is the deputy representative to the WTO.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
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