■Health
US lifts travel alert
US officials lifted a SARS-related travel alert for Taiwan on Tuesday, the only area remaining on a federal health alert list. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the Taiwan alert was lifted because more than 30 days had elapsed since the last SARS case there developed symptoms. ``Currently, no areas in the world are reporting ongoing transmission of the disease,'' the CDC said. Earlier this month, the World Health Organization said SARS had been contained, although WHO officials are wary of a re-emergence of the viral disease.
■Weather
Storms form over Pacific
Two tropical low pressure systems have formed above the Pacific Ocean over the past two days, and both could develop into typhoons, the Central Weather Bureau reported yesterday. One of the tropical low pressure systems was located east of the Philippines and moving westward as of yesterday morning, while the other was located southeast of Guam and also moving west, meteorologists said. The two systems may develop into typhoons in the next one to two days, the meteorologists said. They called for people to be on alert against the approaching weather systems. Meanwhile, the bureau reported that hot weather is likely to continue for several days, with highs of over 36℃ for the north and 34℃ to 35℃ forecast for central and southern areas.
■Travel
Fake visa warning issued
The Mainland Affairs Council yesterday warned Taiwanese traveling to China about the possibility of being issued fake multiple-entry visas or other related entry permits by fraud rings. The council issued the warning in the wake of a report by the Macau Daily that authorities from Gongbei, Guangdong Province, had discovered 119 cases of Taiwanese using counterfeit multiple-entry visas "for residents from Taiwan area" for exit and entry into China via Gongbei customs between Dec. 15 last year and June 3. The Chinese authorities announced recently that no travel agencies nor "intermediary" companies had been authorized to issue multiple-entry visas or other entry papers to people from Taiwan and that all entry-exit papers are only issued by local public security authorities around China, according to the paper.
■ Politics
KMT OKs Wu's expulsion
The KMT's Central Standing Committee yesterday approved resolution recommended by its Evaluation and Discipline Committee to expel Wu Kuo-tung (吳國棟) from the party for deciding to run against the official KMT candidate in the Hualien County commissioner by-election. "It's regrettable," said KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰). "But it was a difficult decision we needed to make." KMT Secretary-General Lin Fong-cheng (林豐正) added that, if the party does not discipline Wu, it would leave grassroots supporters filled with doubt, which might lead to an unfavorable electoral impact on Hsieh Shen-shan (謝深山), the official candidate of the KMT-PFP alliance. Lien also called on all pan-blue supporters to focus their efforts on Hsieh. In response, Wu, reiterated his determination to run in the by-election, saying he was not surprised by the KMT's decision to throw him out of the party.
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
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
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