The initial payouts from the Ministry of Culture’s initial NT$1.5 billion (US$49.95 million) relief package, which drew 7,658 applications, could be requested as early as this week, the ministry said yesterday.
The application period for individuals, groups and businesses in art and cultural sector hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic opened on March 18 and ended on Friday last week, and 90 percent of the applications were submitted this month, Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) told an Executive Yuan news conference in Taipei, where she was joined by Minister Without Portfolio Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫).
The ministry started to review the applications even before the deadline, and those who filed last month might be able to request funds as early as this week, she said.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
The ministry in February announced it would offer NT$1.5 billion to help mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the art and cultural sectors, with NT$800 million coming from the Executive Yuan’s special budget for COVID-19 prevention, relief and recovery and NT$700 million in emergency funds reallocated from other projects.
The initial package was designed to provide subsidies for operational costs or response plans to COVID-19; subsidies to help pay loans and interest; administrative measures such as advanced payments of the ministry’s existing subsidies; and stimulus measures such as the inclusion of arts and cultural venues in the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ stimulus coupon program.
Businesses could apply for up to NT$2.5 million to cover operational costs, while individuals would be eligible for up to NT$60,000, the ministry said.
The ministry earlier this month proposed an expanded relief and recovery package with an additional NT$3.72 billion as part of the central government’s second-phase relief and recovery plan, bringing its total funding to NT$5.22 billion.
The application period for the second-phase package would open on April 30 and end on May 20, Cheng said.
Applicants would be able to submit their application forms online, and the goal was to have the applications approved as early as the end of next month, she 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