EDUCATION
Schools prepare for heat
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) yesterday said he has asked the city’s schools to adjust their schedules for outdoor classes when temperatures exceed 36°C, to prevent students from getting sunburned. Asked whether schools would cancel lessons on days with extreme heat, Hou said there should be a central-government policy that county and municipality governments could follow. Teachers determine whether to reschedule outdoor classes based on the day’s temperature, New Taipei City Education Bureau Deputy Director Liu Ming-chao (劉明超) said. There is no policy to cancel classes based on a specific temperature, as sometimes the apparent temperature was high despite a lower measured temperature, he said. As other mayors and commissioners have expressed a desire for the Ministry of Education to establish policy on the issue, the department would bring it up at a July 21 meeting of education departments heads with the ministry.
DIPLOMACY
Representative appointed
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday said that Lou Chen-hwa (羅震華), a counselor at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Saudi Arabia, is to head the Taiwan Representative Office in Somaliland. Although the east African nation is not recognized by the international community and has no official diplomatic ties, it has 22 representative offices, and Canada, Denmark, Djibouti, Ethiopia, the EU, Turkey, the UK and the UN have established representative agencies there. Taiwan on Wednesday announced that it and Somaliland in February had agreed to establish representative offices in their respective nations. Once the offices are set up, the two sides would cooperate in agriculture, mining, fishing, energy, public health, education and information technology, the ministry said.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
Surge caused capsizing
An unexpected wave surge on Friday caused a vessel to capsize, critically injuring three soldiers during a navy landing drill, the military said yesterday, citing the initial findings of an investigation. A craft with seven Republic of China Marine Corps 99th Brigade personnel aboard at about 9am overturned off Zuoying District’s (左營) Taoziyuan (桃子園) beach in Kaohsiung. As of yesterday, three of the soldiers were in intensive care units with pulmonary edema, a condition caused by an abnormal amount of fluid in the lungs, the navy said. The navy is looking at ways to prevent similar incidents and to improve safety during training exercises, the Navy Command said. All seven soldiers are experienced and elite combatants, the navy said.
SOCIETY
Former politician dies
Former Examination Yuan president Chiu Chuang-huan (邱創煥) on Thursday died at the age of 94, his daughter Chiu Pei-lin (邱珮琳) said. Chiu Chuang-huan was one of many young Taiwanese politicians recruited into the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and local government in the 1970s and 1980s under a policy initiated by then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) to promote more Taiwanese to high-profile government posts. Chiu was born on July 25, 1925, in Changhua County. He held many government and party posts, including minister of the interior, vice premier, senior adviser to the president, Examination Yuan president, Taiwan provincial governor and KMT vice chairman. On Feb. 11, he was admitted to a hospital with pneumonia and died at his home on Thursday, his daughter said.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but