DEFENSE
Conscript standards change
The Ministry of National Defense’s draft revision to regulations on body standards for recruits and conscripts, first announced last year, went into effect on Tuesday last week. Previously, men of service age could be exempted from service if they were shorter than 157cm, or if their body mass index (BMI) was lower than 17 or higher than 31. The amended regulations stipulate that they can only be exempted from service if they are shorter than 155cm, or have a BMI that is lower than 15 or higher than 35. People 155cm to 157cm would not be eligible for active duty, but would be required to perform an alternative service. The changes were made to increase the number of eligible recruits, the ministry said.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Eswatini delegation arrives
Eswatini Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku arrived in the country to meet with officials to discuss bilateral cooperation projects, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. The Eswatini delegation would visit Taipei-based Tex-Ray Industrial Co, a major investor in the African kingdom, it added. The visit is the third high-level delegation from the African ally in the past seven months, after a visit by Eswatini King Mswati III in October last year and Eswatini Prime Minister Cleopas Dlamini in March, MOFA said. Taiwan and Eswatini would celebrate the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations in September, MOFA said on Sunday. Taiwan looks forward to working with the African ally to deepen bilateral ties, it added.
POLITICS
AI provides birthrate advice
In an apparent first, a Kaohsiung city councilor yesterday used the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT to question Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) about the nation’s declining birthrate and aging population at a city council meeting. Kaohsiung City Councilor Kuo Chien-meng (郭建盟) broadcast a video of text and data prompts he gave the GPT-4 model about the country’s low birthrate, from which it produced a 960-word response in about 30 seconds. The AI response said that about 14.4 elementary schools are closed on average every year in Taiwan, including three schools every two years in Kaohsiung. The chatbot cited additional data on declining national and local birthrates, before urging Chen to put forward “strategic policies” — such as better access to childcare and programs to improve families’ work-life balance — to reverse the trend.
SOCIETY
Boy’s body found on beach
The body of a 17-year-old boy was found on a beach in Taichung early yesterday morning, after he was reported missing by a lifeguard on Saturday, local police said. The body of the teenager, surnamed Wang (王), was spotted by a passer-by, a spokesperson for the Taichung City Police Department’s Dajia Precinct said. The body was found about 700m from where Wang and two friends, surnamed Tung (董) and Wu (吳), had waded out to sea, they said. The trio were initially in water up to their waist, but continued out to sea to a point where the water reached their chests about 1km from the shore, police said, citing statements by Tung and Wu. However, a wave suddenly pushed the water level higher, and Tung and Wu headed back in the direction of the shore, but they only realized Wang was not with them once they had reached the shore, they 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