■UNITED NATIONS
MOFA still working on plan
The 64th session of the UN General Assembly convened yesterday, but the Taiwanese government, which had decided not to seek membership this year, has not yet finalized proposals for what it said it would pitch as part of “the country’s meaningful participation in the international body.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) told reporters yesterday at a media gathering that the proposals would be finalized “within one week.” Asked about local media reports that the ministry had already identified a number of UN agencies, such as the International Civil Organization and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, in which Taiwan would seek meaningful participation, Yang said: “It’s not entirely correct.” He said the ministry was still in the process of identifying which agencies would bring the most benefit to Taiwanese.
■ENVIRONMENT
Quake alert invented
A professor at National Taiwan University on Monday presented a small earthquake early warning system device that can alert people at least 10 seconds before seismic waves reach them. “An earthquake warning issued as early as possible can buy some time,” said Wu Yih-min (吳逸民), an associate professor at the Department of Geosciences. The device, which is about one-third the size of a notebook computer, can be hung on walls or incorporated into elevator systems, he said. Wu said the device could give a warning 10 to 30 seconds before an earthquake strikes, stop the elevator and allow passengers to exit. The device is based on the principle that vertical seismic waves, known as P waves, are 1.73 times faster and less violent than horizontal waves, known as S waves. However, there are certain correlations between P waves and S waves, and Wu designed an algorithm to analyze initial P waves to identify information about earthquakes.
■LABOR
Unpaid leave figures drop
The number of workers forced to take unpaid leave has dropped dramatically to just below 50,000, an indication that the country’s production slowdown could be nearing an end. The Council of Labor Affairs said yesterday that since Aug. 31, when 58,983 people were put on unpaid leave by 614 companies, the number has decreased by more than 20 percent to 46,377 workers on unpaid leave at 552 companies by the middle of this month. The number of employees on unpaid leave peaked at 238,975 in March, about seven times as much as the latest figure.
■TRANSPORT
Taiwan to host safety meet
The annual conference of the International Transportation Safety Association (ITSA) will be held in Taiwan from May 9 to May 12, the Aviation Safety Council said. It will mark the first time that Taiwan has hosted the meeting on improving global transportation safety since it joined the organization nine years ago, the council said. Formed by the independent investigation boards of the US, Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands, ITSA was formally established in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, in 1993. Its mission is to improve transport safety in each member country by learning from the experiences of others. ITSA is composed of 14 independent investigation boards from various countries, with Taiwan’s Aviation Safety Council becoming a full member in 2000 and taking part in the association’s annual conference for the first time in 2001.
■FISHING
Officials near fishing deal
Taiwan hopes to sign an agreement with China to rein in illegal fishing by Chinese vessels, which use dynamite and poison to boost their catch, an official from Taiwan’s Fisheries Agency said. “Top officials from the two sides have reached a tentative consensus on the agreement,” Fisheries Agency Director-General Chen Tien-shou (陳添壽) said. Li Jianhua (李健華), the head of China’s Bureau of Fisheries, visited Taiwan last week to discuss an agreement that would cover protection of maritime resources, Chen said, adding that the agreement was likely to be signed next year. Taiwan coast guard ships have frequently repelled Chinese boats fishing illegally with dynamite and poison, depleting fish stocks in waters near Taiwan.
■ENVIRONMENT
Spider lily saved
The Taroko National Park Headquarters said it has succeeded in saving a critically endangered flower, the golden spider lily, in the renowned park. The perennial, nicknamed dragon-claw by locals for the shape of its blossom, is considered “the flower of Taroko Gorge” as the deep marble gorge is one of the few places its eye-catching golden blooms can be seen, the headquarters said. The plant is also found on the north coast and in Kenting National Park, but only in small numbers, the officials said. The lily, which has the scientific name Lycoris aurea, has been listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, inferring that its global population will have fallen by 80 percent in 10 years, or three generations, based on actual or potential damage by human activity, the officials said, adding that they began efforts to recover the plant numbers on the Buluowan Terrace in 2001.
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