■WEATHER
New tropical storm forms
A low air pressure system called Tropical Storm Mirinae has formed near Guam, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday. As of yesterday, Mirinae was located off the southeast coast of Guam about 2,700km from Taiwan. It is moving west at a speed of 29kph. The bureau said the tropical storm would move toward the Philippines first because the strong high air pressure system from the north would cause it to move south. The bureau estimated yesterday that the storm would pass through the Philippines on Saturday or Sunday. A cold front is scheduled to hit Taiwan around the same time. Whether the joint force of these two systems will generate the Fujiwhara effect remains to be seen, the bureau said.
■TOURISM
Council pushes farm tours
The Council of Agriculture yesterday announced a series of initiatives to promote tourism at leisure farms. It stated that leisure farms have been growing in popularity, especially among city dwellers wanting a break from city life. The council plans to unveil the vacation plans, some costing as little as NT$168, at the Taipei International Travel Fair that is taking place from Friday to Monday.
■TRANSPORT
Suhua route speeded up
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications said on Monday that it would present a new route for construction of the proposed Suhua Highway by the end of the year and hold public hearings in eastern Taiwan next year. Construction of a rerouted highway is likely to proceed after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), in his capacity as Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman, on Sunday pledged to start building “a safe road” for residents in Hualien and Taitung by the end of next year. Chen Mao-nan (陳茂南), chief secretary of the ministry’s Directorate General of Highways, said the ministry was considering several ideas, including improving the current highway and building new tunnels, adding that the final proposal would be presented by year’s end. The proposed route would not entirely follow the same route as the contentious Suhua Freeway, he said. Chen said the ministry would also hold public hearings with residents in Yilan, Hualien and Taitung counties before sending the proposal to the Environmental Protection Administration for an environmental impact assessment.
■MEDIA
Rules on PRC press eased
Chinese reporters assigned to Taiwan are to be allowed more flexibility in their on-site news coverage and will no longer require to pre-register their field work with the Government Information Office, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister Chao Chien-min (趙建民) said yesterday. Chao made the announcement prior to his departure for China with a group of domestic media representatives to visit media organizations there. At present, Chinese news organizations are permitted to send reporters across the Strait for special news coverage for a maximum of three months at a time, a reciprocal measure that allows Taiwanese news organizations to assign reporters to China for the same period. The MAC official said that after detailed reviews, the government had decided to allow Chinese reporters more flexibility when they are assigned to Taiwan. While each Chinese news organization can now only assign a team of two reporters in the future, up to five reporters working for the same organization will be allowed, he said.
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
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
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