■ Transportation
A Parisian streetscape?
Taipei's Urban Planning Department plans to reduce Zhongxiao East Road and Roosevelt Road in Taipei by one lane each to widen sidewalk space in a bid to make the streets resemble the Avenue des Champs Elysees in Paris. The plan aims to turn the two roads into "living streets" where people can stroll, shop, drink coffee and enjoy live performances. Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) endorsed the plan yesterday despite concerns about traffic flow. However, he requested that a study be conducted to review traffic projections and possible adverse consequences. Both thoroughfares have four lanes in each direction at present, while the plan would have two lanes for vehicles and one for city buses.
■ Medicine
Antivenin to the world
Although few people are aware of it, Taiwan is a major world supplier of a snake serum known as antivenin, which is used in the treatment of snakebites, an official from the Department of Health's Snake Serum Production Center said. The center said the quality of its serum was demonstrated by the regularity of orders from the US, Germany and Italy. Taiwan is home to several poisonous snakes, some of which are endemic to the island. Snakes unique to Taiwan include a species of cobra known as the spoon snake, the banded krait, the chain snake, the hundred-pacer, a type of rattlesnake and the green snake. All except for the green snake are endangered species and protected by law. More than 70 poisonous snakes are kept at the center for the collection of venom, a process regulated and monitored by the Council of Agriculture. The center's veterinarians gather venom once a month from the snakes, which are maintained in a comfortable, air-conditioned habitat.
■ Defense
You need subs: Simmons
Visiting US Representative Rob Simmons said yesterday there was no doubt that Taiwan needs to enhance its submarine capabilities to deter possible aggression from China. Describing submarines as defensive weapons in Taiwan's case because its fleet would be far smaller than China's, the Republican congressman said: "Eight submarines is not an arms race, but it does create a capability that deters aggression." He made the comments during a visit to Tsoying naval base in Kaohsiung. He said the US was "100 percent" behind the proposed sales, denying reports that the Bush administration has no intention of selling eight submarines to Taipei to avoid provoking Beijing.
■ Technology
New ATMs may stop theft
Wrongdoers who conceal their faces while withdrawing money from other customers' bank accounts through automatic teller machines (ATMs) beware: future attempts to steal cash may be thwarted by a new computerized facial recognition system. The system was developed by a research team from the College of Computer Science, National Chiao Tung University in Hsinchu, and can deny ATM access to users who have their faces covered. ATMs equipped with the system can distinguish between someone whose face is covered or uncovered, and only grant access to those who bare their faces. The system's developers said they hoped the device would assist law enforcers in stopping a common crime involving ATMs: thieves shield their faces with motorcycle helmets or masks, even while their images are being captured by ATM surveillance cameras.
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