■ Internet
Taiwan part of `Spam-a-lot'
Taiwan is the 10th-largest source of junk e-mail, with 2 percent of the world's total originating here, data released on Monday by the EU showed. The EU said the 12 largest sources of junk e-mail are: the US, which accounts for 21.6 percent, China, with 13.4 percent, France (6.3 percent), South Korea (6.3 percent), Spain (5.8 percent), Poland (4.8 percent), Brazil (4.7 percent), Italy (4.3 percent), Germany (3 percent), Taiwan, Israel (1.8 percent) and Japan (1.7 percent). The EU data shows that these 12 countries produce 75.7 percent of all junk e-mail. Citing a study conducted by Ferris Research last year, the EU said junk e-mail costs the world a total of US$51.24 billion per year in economic losses.
■ Health
Bird flu vigilance urged
Chicken and pig farmers should heighten their vigilance after the recent outbreak of the H5N1 strain of avian flu at a South Korean chicken farm, Council of Agriculture officials said yesterday. South Korea has culled nearly 100,000 chickens, ducks and other animals since last week to try to prevent the spread of bird flu. Since the two countries are on the same route for migratory birds, council Vice Chairman Hu Fu-hsiung (胡富雄) said Taiwan cannot afford to be lax in epidemic prevention and oversight. Noting that preventing contact between wild birds and domestic animals is very important in avian flu prevention, Hu said the Executive Yuan has earmarked NT$400 million (US$12.12 million) from its second reserve fund to offer subsidies for chicken and hog farmers to erect wire fences at their farms.
■ Fisheries
Ministry thanks allies
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs thanked four allies yesterday for helping Taiwan convince the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) to reinstate the nation's tuna catch quota. Foreign ministry spokesman David Wang (王建業) was referring to Nicaragua, Sao Tome and Principe, Honduras and Guatemala. All four spoke up for Taiwan during the recent ICCAT conference in Croatia. As of next year, Taiwan's quota will revert to its original 13,517 tonnes per year. ICCAT decided last year to cut Taiwan's quota for this year to 4,173 tonnes as punishment for alleged overfishing. ICCAT also demanded that Taiwan step up management and surveillance of its tuna fleet.
■ Politics
Red-shirts moving indoors
As its permit to hold protests in front of the Taipei Railway Station expires at midnight tonight, the campaign aiming at ousting President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) announced yesterday that it would move its campaign indoors tonight. Anti-Chen camp news coordinator Chang Fu-chung (張富忠) said Democratic Progressive Party Taipei city councilors had acquired a street rally permit that begins tomorrow, and so the camp will move to a site on Chongqing S Road. "We will move our campaign to a place close to the Presidential Office. We will watch Chen Shui-bian everyday and continue to urge him to step down," Chang told a press conference. While the camp has no immediate plans to hold any large rallies, Chang said it would continue to fight corruption. The monthly rent of its new home is about NT$200,000. According to records released by the camp last month, it has spent about NT$65 million (US$1.98 million) of the NT$100 million it raised from donations. Chang said the group would announce its financial situation "at the proper time."
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