DIPLOMACY
Tuvalu minister lands today
Tuvaluan Minister of Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs Simon Kofe is to arrive in Taiwan today for a six-day visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Kofe would witness the signing of three bilateral deals between Taiwan and Tuvalu during his stay, the ministry said. The agreements would pave the way for cooperation between the two sides in the areas of diplomat training, technical exchanges and mutual legal assistance, the ministry said. In addition to meeting with government officials, Kofe would also meet with representatives of Taiwanese enterprises developing submarine cables and other communication networks, it said. Kofe is hoping to learn from Taiwan’s experience, as his country is working to improve its digital infrastructure, the ministry said. Tuvalu is an important Pacific ally of Taiwan, and the two countries have developed close partnerships in the areas of information technology, agriculture, fisheries, clean energy and public health, it added. Tuvalu established diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979.
FOOD SAFETY
More truffles fail testing
Another shipment of fresh truffles imported from Europe recently failed a customs inspection as it was found to contain excessive levels of a heavy metal, the Food and Drug Administration said yesterday. The agency said that 3.5kg of truffles imported by Taipei-based iTaste International Co from Spain were destroyed after they failed safety tests. The fungus was found to contain cadmium at a concentration of 3 milligrams per kilogram (mg/kg), compared with the legal limit of 2mg/kg, it said, adding that it was the seventh shipment of truffles iTaste has imported since last year that were found to be substandard. Taiwan imported 1,844kg of fresh truffles in 321 batches from different places of origin last year, of which 29kg from nine shipments was substandard, the agency said. iTaste had imported 23kg from six of the nine batches: a 2kg shipment from France, a 4kg shipment from Bulgaria and four shipments from Italy that totaled 17kg, it said. As a result, the agency said it has raised the inspection rate to 100 percent for all iTaste truffles imported from Italy and has tightened similar checks on iTaste’s truffles from other countries.
ECOLOGY
Fishers paid to pause
The Tainan Agricultural Bureau is offering fishers subsidies for voluntarily pausing their fishing operations in a bid to conserve fisheries in the seas near Taiwan and cut carbon emissions. From 2003, the Fisheries Agency has decreased ship fuel subsidies while rewarding fishers for voluntarily pausing their operations to alleviate the ecological pressures on the fish habitats off Taiwan proper, the bureau said. More than 900 Tainan-based fishing boats participated in the voluntary pause every year after 2018, saving 4,300 kiloliters of fuel and 11,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, it said. Eligible fishers include operators of boats that have gone to the sea at least 90 times, logged at least 270 operating hours and refrained from fishing for at least 120 days since Sept. 1 last year, it said, adding that subsidies would be offered until Aug. 31. The subsidies do not apply to live fish transports, largehead hairtail transports, fishing boats used for tourism and boats used for harvesting in exclusive fishing right fisheries, it said. Any eligible fishing boat, sampan or raft that has paused operations would receive at least NT$20,000, with operators of bigger vessels receiving more, it 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