■ENVIRONMENT
Spoonbill numbers up
A record 1,081 endangered black-faced spoonbills have been spotted wintering in the Tainan area, local conservation advocacy groups said yesterday. Every year from October to April, black-faced spoonbills fly south to winter in wetlands and lagoons in Tainan City and Tainan County. As part of a global annual census initiated by the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society, local conservation groups began counting the spoonbills on Saturday and completed the count yesterday. “As of noon on Sunday, 1,081 black-faced spoonbills had been documented, the largest number of sightings since the annual census began a few years ago,” said Lee Ming-hua (李明華), a Tainan County river ranger, who joined volunteers from the Wild Bird Society of Tainan City and the Black-Faced Spoonbill Conservation Association of Tainan County in conducting the survey. The largest group tallied was 728 spoonbills spotted at the Cigu Township (七股) black-faced spoonbill reserve.
■CULTURE
Emperor to get exhibit
The National Palace Museum confirmed yesterday that it would hold a joint exhibition with a Chinese museum on Emperor Yongzheng — the fourth ruler of the Qing Dynasty — in Taiwan in October. Director Chou Kung-shin told reporters she would make an “ice-breaking” visit to China’s Palace Museum in Beijing next month and that Zheng Xinmiao (鄭欣淼), director of the Beijing museum, would pay a visit to the Taipei museum in March. Chou said the two sides, making their first contact in 60 years, would discuss the October exhibit. She said the joint exhibit could be held in Taiwan because under the 1992 Statute on Encouraging and Rewarding Cultural and Art Enterprises, the Beijing museum’s exhibits would be protected from seizure or any legal entanglements over ownership. Taiwan’s art and cultural objects could also be displayed in China if a similar statute is passed to grant the same protection, Chou said.
■SOCIETY
Pitcher Wang awaits child
New York Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民) yesterday confirmed rumors that he would become a father in June. Wang’s wife is expecting a boy. Asked whether his son would be allowed to play baseball when he grows up, Wang said his son could make his own decision. Wang also said that since June is in the middle of the baseball season, the baby would likely be born in the US.
■POLITICS
Tsai welcomes ‘witch hunt’
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said on Saturday that the government’s probe into the role of former financial officials in alleged irregularities in the country’s second wave of financial reform was a witch hunt. Tsai, who helped with the reform as vice premier between 2006 and 2007, made the comment as she emerged from a forum sponsored by Taiwan Thinktank. “If the Executive Yuan wants to engage in a political witch hunt against me, then let’s have a good fight,” she said. Tsai said the financial officials who presided over the reform followed the law. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Lee Sush-der (李述德) refused to comment on whether any laws had been broken in implementing the reforms. Lee said it was up to prosecutors and the Control Yuan to probe the case. Lee and Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Sean Chen told a news conference the previous day that a probe by their staff had raised 16 questions about the reforms.
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