■ DIPLOMACY
ChthoniC to return from tour
Black metal band ChthoniC is scheduled to return home today from a tour to North America promoting Taiwan's bid to join the UN. The Goth-style rockers were on the road for more than two months, crisscrossing some 60 cities in North America and introducing foreign audiences to the difficulties Taiwan faces in its efforts to join the UN and other international organizations. In a press conference in Washington earlier this month, lead singer Freddy Lim (林昶佐) dismissed the allegation that the band was too political. "I don't feel anything political in our message," he said. "It's a very simple message that we, the citizens of Taiwan, want to have the same rights as the American people and those of other countries at the United Nations. I don't believe this is too much to ask."
■ DIPLOMACY
Taiwan Beer breaks the ice
Taiwan Beer has become popular among WTO representatives in Geneva, Switzerland, Taiwan's representative to the WTO Lin Yi-fu (林義夫) said on Sunday. Lin introduced Taiwan Beer to other representatives at the WTO at an unofficial cocktail party on Saturday, which drew more than 100 participants, including mission chiefs of WTO member economies. The party followed a friendly golf match among representatives on the same day, Lin said. In order to raise Taiwan's profile, Lin decided to include Taiwan Beer among the drinks at the party. The beer proved popular among party participants because it was very different from the other beverages, Lin said.
■ TRANSPORTATION
Su-Hua Highway damaged
The Highway Bureau cautioned motorists yesterday about driving on the landslide-prone Suao-Hualien Highway after the road was hit by falling rocks earlier in the day. Bureau road maintenance official Chen Shih-chan (陳世昌) said that over the past few days, intermittent downpours in Ilan County had made the highway more precarious for traffic. Chen said that in the early hours yesterday, a 30m span of the roadway at Wuta, Nanau Township (南澳), Ilan County, had been washed out. Road maintenance personnel had begun to clear the road, but more time was needed to repair the heavily damaged roadbed, he said. At around 5am yesterday morning, a sedan carrying two people encountered a washout and slid 130m down the side of a mountain, Suao police reported. The driver and his 81-year-old mother were rescued about an hour after the accident and rushed to a nearby hospital, the report said. The driver injured his forehead and shoulders, while his mother sustained a fracture to the right arm.
■ WEATHER
CWB warns of torrential rain
The Central Weather Bureau maintained its warning of heavy rains yesterday evening, saying eastern Taiwan and the southern mountain regions could expect torrential rain during the night, while mountainous areas in the north could also receive heavy rain. The bureau said the east coast can expect showers throughout the day today, while the mountainous areas in central and southern Taiwan could see thunderstorms and rain in the afternoon. Toward the evening, eastern and southern Taiwan will be overcast, while Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu will be overcast to clear, with a chance of a visible full moon in the evening.
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