SOCIETY
Body of young girl found
A young girl who was the last person still missing after six people were swept into New Taipei City’s Beishih River (北勢溪) during a group outing on Saturday last week was found dead yesterday. A body was found in the downstream part of the river and confirmed to be an eight-year-old girl surnamed Liu (劉), who was part of a group of 16 adults and 15 children on an outing organized by a Taipei-based outdoor experience firm. The group set out for the historic trail before turning back due to heavy rain. On their way back, the group was attempting to cross the river via a check dam when two adults and four children were swept into the water. The check dam was not part of the designated walking route and lacked safety features such as railings.
SOCIETY
Mass illness at girls’ school
A total of 142 students and faculty members at Sacred Heart Girls’ High School in New Taipei City were taken to hospitals in the city and in Taipei early yesterday after coming down with stomach pain and diarrhea, in what is believed to be a case of mass food poisoning, the school said. The 141 students and one teacher, who live in the school’s dormitories, fell ill on Wednesday evening after eating meals provided by a catering service contracted by the school, principal Sophie Wei (魏雪玲) said. As of press time, they were all in stable condition and 53 students had been discharged, Wei said. The New Taipei City Department of Health has collected samples of the food for analysis and is awaiting the results. Meals will be provided by a different catering service for the time being, the school said.
MUSIC
Mini symphony premieres
The National Symphony Orchestra is to premiere the second piece in its “One-minute Symphony Project” at a concert in Taipei today. The performance at the National Concert Hall is to begin with the 1-minute composition Falling (墜落之時) by Cheng Ya-tzu (鄭雅慈), one of the up-and-coming Taiwanese composers the project is eager to promote and nurture, the orchestra said in a statement. The project, which asks musicians to compose a piece of exactly 1 minute in length, was planned by the group’s artistic adviser, Jun Markl, who took up the post for the 2021-2022 season that began this summer. Markl said he hoped the project could unearth talented young composers who can write music that represents Taiwan’s sound. The first piece presented by the project was Chou Jun-ying’s (周潤瑩) Trauma at a concert on Oct. 8. The concert today is to conducted by Wu Yao-yu (吳曜宇), winner of the 53rd Besancon International Competition for Young Conductors in France in 2013.
SOCIETY
Pet protection rules passed
The New Taipei City Council yesterday passed the New Taipei City Ordinance for Animal Protection, mandating that all pet owners must use leads, boxes or other appropriate containers with which to constrain pet movements. The ordinance has been forwarded to the Executive Yuan for review, and if approved, is expected to take effect next year. Aside from proposing a fine of NT$3,000 to NT$15,000 for offenders, the ordinance would mandate that owners inform the New Taipei City Animal Protection Office if they no longer wish to care for a pet and would be given 30 days to reconsider their decision. It also includes articles that obligate veterinary clinics to report cases of animal abuse or abandonment to the Animal Protection Office.
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
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
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