■ POLITICS
Tsai warns Lu on China visit
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday that former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) should consider a number of political factors before deciding to visit China. Lu said last month she was thinking of visiting China in her capacity as the founder of her planned Formosa Post (玉山午報). Beijing said on Thursday that it would welcome any visitors from Taiwan as long as they embraced a peaceful approach to cross-strait relations. Tsai said that before considering a trip to China, Lu should evaluate the risks and be on guard against a possible “political plot” by Chinese authorities. Taiwanese political figures should be very prudent when dealing with China, as cross-strait relations are extremely complicated, Tsai said. “Taiwanese politicians should never let their guard down in cross-strait affairs,” because China has a bad reputation on such matters, Tsai said.
■ TOURISM
UK top source of visitors
The number of European tourists visiting Taiwan rose 34 percent last year, with the highest growth recorded in visitors from the UK, statistics released on Friday by the Taipei Tourism Office in Germany showed. Arrivals in Taiwan from Europe totaled 200,914 last year, an increase of 7.74 percent from the previous year, when there were 186,483 arrivals, said Thomas Chang (張維庭), director of the office, which is responsible for promoting Taiwan in Europe. The largest number of visitors from a single European country last year — 48,391 — were from the UK, a rise of 21 percent from 2007, when the figure was 39,968. At present, more than 30 British travel agencies are providing package tours to Taiwan, making Taiwan one of the most popular tourist destinations in Asia among UK citizens, he said. Activities in Taiwan such as birdwatching, mountain climbing, hot spring baths, round-the-island tours and cruises are the most popular among British, he said.
■ WEATHER
Yushan receives snow
Snow fell yesterday on Yushan (玉山) — the highest peak in East Asia — and at 2pm accumulations had reached 26cm on the North Peak, the Central Weather Bureau’s Yushan station said in a report. The bureau said snow began falling on Yushan on Friday night and that temperatures later plunged to sub-zero levels as a cold front reached the country. There was light snowfall until yesterday morning, the weather station said, reporting that the temperature on Yushan was between minus 2.2˚C and minus 0.6˚C. Meanwhile, the Yushan National Park Administration reported more than 5cm of snow at Paiyun Lodge on Yushan’s North Peak.
■ POPULATION
Government releases data
Taiwan’s population was 23.05 million at the end of last month, the latest statistics made public by the Ministry of the Interior showed. Kinmen County recorded the largest growth at 4.255 percent over the previous year, followed by Hsinchu City with 1.629 percent and Hsinchu County with 1.487 percent. The biggest contraction — at 1.869 percent — was recorded on Matsu Island, Lienchiang County, followed by Taitung County at 0.727 percent. In terms of households, Taipei County had the largest number at 1.34 million, accounting for 17.52 percent of the country’s 7.68 million households. Taipei City had the second-highest number of households at 958,573, while Taoyuan County was third, with 638,810. Last month there were 17,159 births and 15,877 deaths, with 9,137 marriages and 4,947 divorces, statistics showed.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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