■ WEATHER
Bureau issues rain alert
The Central Weather Bureau yesterday issued a heavy rain alert to people in western, northeastern and eastern regions of the country, as well as for Kinmen (金門), Matzu (馬祖) and Penghu (澎湖), as a stationary front is expected to bring heavy rain to these areas. The bureau, said that the rainy weather will continue throughout the weekend. Residents of affected areas should also beware of lightning and strong winds that might accompany the rain. The bureau said the possibility of rain would remain high next week. Meanwhile, the bureau announced that Typhoon Yutu had formed near Guam yesterday. The bureau forecast that Taiwan would be spared as the typhoon is moving north and is unlikely to approach the country.
■ CRIME
Chinese tourist disappears
A Chinese tourist might have sneaked into Taiwan from Kinmen with the help of local human traffickers, local county officials said on Friday. Kinmen tourism bureau officials said the 19-year-old tourist, surnamed Wei, might have entered Taiwan via Kinmen, where he arrived on Monday with a 17-member group from Xiamen for a three-day tour. The local travel agency that organized the tour contacted Kinmen police after Wei disappeared, the officials said, adding that police were still searching for him. Wei could be the first visitor to abscond since tourists from Fujian were allowed to make sight-seeing trips to Kinmen via the "three small links" in December 2004.
■ SOCIETY
Spouses group established
A support association for Indonesian spouses of Taiwanese citizens was established in Kaohsiung City yesterday with the assistance of the city's Bureau of Social Affairs. A ceremony was held at the Kaohsiung City Service Center for New Immigrant Families to celebrate the birth of the "Kaohsiung City Indonesian Good Sisters Association," as well as the inauguration of the association's first chairwoman, Wu Chiu-o (吳秋娥), who has lived in the city for 18 years since marrying a local resident. In her address at the ceremony, Wu expressed in fluent Mandarin and Taiwanese her gratitude for the city government's care for Indonesian spouses, which she said had helped her to easily adapt to life in Taiwan. A total of 862 Indonesian spouses live in Kaohsiung City.
■ SOCIETY
Scholars go `scavenging'
A group of Fulbright scholars, some of the 800 US faculty and professionals sent abroad each year under the scheme, held a "photo scavenger hunt" involving hundreds of local and foreign students on the MRT system yesterday. Titled the "Blue Line Challenge" because the event was held mostly in stations on the MRT blue line, the scavenger hunt brought together nearly 300 Taiwanese and Western young people to compete for a cash prize, event organizer and Fulbright scholar Joel Backaler said. The participants split up into camera-toting teams of eight to 10 people to "scavenge" for the best photograph, he said. The pictures would then be judged with NT$8,000 going to the group that snapped the best shot, he said, adding that the event aimed to promote cultural exchange and friendship between locals and foreigners. For more information, visit blueline.mylife-time.net.
■ COMPETITION
Students win design contest
Four Students at Ming-Dao Senior High School in Taichung County have won first prize in an international Web site design competition titled "Doors to Diplomacy 2007" sponsored by the US Department of State. Chang Chia-wei (張珈瑋), Hung Ching-ting (洪敬婷), Chiao Hsu-han (趙緒涵) and Chen Yen-yu (陳彥妤) won the championship with a project titled "The Role of Taiwan in World Health-International Medical Aid." The competition was aimed at encouraging high-school students around the world to create Web pages carrying messages about the importance of international affairs and diplomacy. A total of 195 Web page design projects from 38 countries were submitted.
■ TECHNOLOGY
Taiwan No. 7 in digital index
Taiwan ranks seventh in the world in the Digital Opportunity Index (DOI) evaluation of the World Information Society Report 2007, the National Information and Communication Initiative (NICI) said yesterday. The report was released by the UN's International Telecommunication Union, which promotes international cooperation in telecommunications. Taiwan moved up three spots from last year's survey, which looks at 181 economies around the world, NICI said. The Digital Opportunity Index is based on 11 core information and communication technology indicators in three clusters -- opportunity, infrastructure and use. In this year's evaluation, Taiwan ranked 2nd in infrastructure, 6th in opportunity and 23rd in use, NICI said. The government will spend NT$55.6 billion (US$1.66 billion) from this year through 2011 on reinforcing the nation's information and communi-cation infrastructure.
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