■Transportation
Temperature checks remain
Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san (林陵三) said yesterday that people traveling by airplane, long-distance bus and ships (excluding ferries) will still have to have their temperatures checked before boarding. People whose temperatures are found exceeding 38?C should receive medical treatment before they can use public transportation, he said.
■ SARS
Officials lift travel advisory
US health officials, citing the decreased risk of SARS in Taiwan, are no longer advising travelers to avoid the nation. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on Wednesday it would no longer advise US nationals to avoid Taiwan because of successful efforts to contain the pneumonia-like illness. The statement said the agency "continues to recommend that US travelers to Taiwan observe precautions to safeguard their health." A travel warning issued May 9 by the US Department of State remains in force, however. Taiwan and Toronto are the only places listed as SARS-affected areas by the World Health Organization.
■ Crime
Forgery ring busted
Police have arrested 12 people suspected of credit-card fraud, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said yesterday. Police said that Fan Jer-wei (范哲維) and 11 accomplices are accused of using stolen credit-card numbers for more than six months. Banking sources have estimated that the losses may run into the tens of millions of NT dollars. Police said that Fan, 32, has a record of credit-card fraud, money laundering and forgery. Fan is alleged to have exchanged information with several international rings regarding stolen credit-card numbers using text messages on his mobile phone and by traveling regularly to various countries in Southeast Asia. According to police, Fan's accomplices tried to avoid detection by using cards with numbers issued in this country overseas and cards with overseas numbers here.
■ Culture
Wang Dan to visit
Exiled Chinese dissident Wang Dan (王丹), who has been invited by the Taipei City Government to serve as an artist-in-residence, said yesterday that he will make good use of his six-week stay to learn more about Taipei. The city's Cultural Affairs Bureau held a press conference at the Taipei Artist's Village on Hoping East Road yesterday to introduce Wang. Bureau Director Liao Hsien-hao (廖咸浩), like Wang, is a published poet, and so they used the occasion to recite one of their works. Wang recited Sketch on a Rainy Night which won first prize in a worldwide Chinese language competition. Wang, who has visited Taiwan many times, said that he hopes he can get a taste of the cultural beauty of the nation and observe society.
■ Transportation
Younger bikers at risk
Young motorcycle riders are involved in more traffic accidents than older, more experienced riders, according to statistics released Wednesday by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. A total of 923 accidents were caused by motorcycles last year, of which 381, or 42 percent, were caused by riders under 30, the statistics show. Ministry officials also pointed out that although the number of motorcycle accidents last year decreased by 88 from 2001's level, the number involving riders aged over 60 increased by 12 over the previous year's level.
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