■ Tourism
Travel expected to increase
Travel activity is expected to pick up significantly after yesterday's heated mayoral and city council elections in Taipei and Kaohsiung conclude, according to tourism industry sources. Local travel agents have placed much of the blame for the slow business they have been experiencing recently on the elections, saying that over the past several days, many Taiwanese concerned about the expected tight races have decided to stay at home until after the elections. Some tourist agencies complained that they haven't had a single group travel abroad over the past 10 days and that many clients have been booking plane tickets or travel packages for the days after the election and before the Christmas vacation when ticket prices will increase, especially on the most popular routes such as to New Zealand or Australia.
■ Indigenous people
Taipei to host conference
The Council of Indigenous Peoples has invited government officials and scholars from countries in the vast Pacific and southeast Asia to attend the two-day Assembly of Austronesian Leaders to be held in Taipei next week. A spokesman of the council said that Taiwan's indigenous peoples are members of the Austronesian family, which has a total population of over 280 million in the world. It is expected that the two-day assembly starting on Monday will help Austronesian peoples to establish contacts and grass-roots cooperation. Tribal leaders and government officials from Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Australia, New Zealand, Palau, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Hawaii, Vanuatu, and Canada will attend the discussions on the preservation of cultural heritages and related challenges.
■ Crime
Murder suspects arrested
Police in Taipei arrested two suspects in connection with the murder of Yuan Wei-cheng (袁維城), vice chairman of the Taipei Junior Chamber (台北市青商會), late Friday night, Chinese-language media reported yesterday. Police from the Wenshan Precinct under the Taipei City Police Department arrested Lu Min-wei (呂旻蔚), 30, and Chen Hsi-ta (陳錫達), 25, at their homes in Taipei's Mucha District in relation to the case, in which Yuan was kidnapped, robbed and then burnt to death. According to the police, Lu is a former employee of Yuan's. On Nov. 27, the two suspects invited Yuan for a meal in order to kidnap the 36-year-old businessman. According to police, they tortured Yuan for his ATM card and PIN number, which they used to withdraw NT$150,000 from his account. The suspects, both unemployed, then allegedly tied the victim in his car and burned him to death. Yuan's body and vehicle were found in Mucha on Nov. 30.
■ Foreign relations
Nicaraguan minister to visit
Nicaraguan Agriculture and Forestry Minister Jose Augusto Navarro Flores will arrive in Taipei on Monday for a five-day visit. Accompanied by Luis Mejia, a section chief of the ministry, Navarro will meet Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Tu Chu-sheng (杜筑生), Council of Agriculture Chairman Lee Chin-lung (李金龍) and other high-ranking officials. The visitors will also tour the council's Livestock Research Institute and its Taoyuan District Agricultural Improvement Station, the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the Taipei World Trade Center and other economic and cultural establishments. They are scheduled to leave Taiwan on Friday.
Agencies
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