■ Diplomacy
Congressional group to visit
US Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler and five other members of the US Congressional Taiwan Caucus are scheduled to attend a seminar on Asia-Pacific democracy and security next month in Taipei. Wexler will be accompanied by five other members of the US House of Representatives: Republican Steve Chabot, Democrat Solomon Ortiz, Republican Clifford Stearns, Democrat Shelley Berkley and Republican Gil Gutknecht. The caucus was established earlier this year to help strengthen the friendly relations between Taiwan and the US. Wexler and Chabot are co-chairmen of the organization. Participants in the seminar to be sponsored by Legislator Trong Chai (蔡同榮) will also come from Japan and other countries in the region. The seminar will open on Jan. 15.
■ Transportation
FAT applies for air route
Far East Air Transport Corp (FAT) has applied for permission from the South Korean Ministry of Construction and Transportation to operate the Taipei-Cheju Island chartered flight route, South Korean air travel industry sources said yesterday. FAT plans to run seven Taipei-Cheju Island chartered flights per week during the Jan. 10-March 10 period, the sources said. Besides applying for the Taipei-Cheju Island route, the carrier had earlier applied for permission to operate the Taipei-Yangyang route. Earlier this year, the ministry gave a green light to Taiwan's Trans Asia Airways to run four Taipei-Yangyang chartered flights. Trans Asia Airways is also interested in running the Taipei-Cheju Island route and has exchanged views with Cheju International Airport officials on the matter. In turn, Korean Air will begin running the Seoul-Taipei chartered flight route next Friday. It will also apply to operate the Taipei-Cheju Island route once Taiwan's airlines are granted permission to offer charter flights on the route.
■ Resources
Water level remains low
The water level of the Feitsui Reservoir, the main source of water for the greater Taipei area, remains low despite rain in northern Taiwan over the past two days, reservoir officials said yesterday. The officials noted that rainfall registered in the reservoir area was only 6.09mm Friday and 7.04mm as of 1pm yesterday. The water level has dropped below 149.45m, compared with 161.9m at the same time last year. Taipei citizens have been urged to conserve water in a bid to avoid the water rationing that became necessary last May, when water supplies were suspended for one or two days per week. Since last August, Feitsui Reservoir officials have been cutting daily water supplies by 500,000 tonnes, creating a saving of some 60 million tonnes of water.
■ Obituary
Columnist dies at 93
Hsia Cheng-ying (夏承楹), a humor columnist who wrote under the pen name Ho Fan (何凡), died of heart failure yesterday at the age of 93. According to his family, Ho Fan died at the Central Clinic in Taipei at 7:46am. Ho Fan, a former publisher and president of the Mandarin Daily News, was known for his humorous essays and sarcastic comments carried in the mass-circulation United Daily News and other local publications. He seldom made public appearances in recent years due to his poor health. But he never stopped writing. Ho Fan's health worsened quickly after his wife Lin Hai-ying, also a noted writer, died last year, sources close to his family said.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