■ DISASTERS
Prevention office opens
The Disaster Prevention and Rescue Office under the Executive Yuan was inaugurated yesterday to better integrate resources during catastrophes. Calling the inauguration a “milestone” in the nation’s history of disaster prevention, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said the office would be able to carry out disaster prevention and rescue efforts more effectively as the office is composed of 50 officials from different government branches. The office was established after southern and eastern parts of the nation were devastated by days of torrential rain brought by Typhoon Morakot in August. The government was heavily criticized for failing to effectively integrate resources from different government agencies to conduct disaster relief work.
■ AVIATION
Heavy fog delays 16 flights
Sixteen flights heading to countries in Southeast Asia were delayed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday morning because of thick fog, the Taoyuan Aviation Office said yesterday. The Central Weather Bureau issued a fog alert yesterday morning to residents of Kinmen, Matsu and the west coast of Taiwan proper. The fog caused visibility at the airport to drop to 800m. The Taoyuan Aviation Office regulated the departure of flights between 9:04am and 11:15am. The airport canceled the restrictions after the fog lifted. The bureau forecast that fog could still appear in Kinmen, Matsu and on the west coast today.
■ ENVIRONMENT
DNA to help nab poachers
Taiwan intends to use DNA from whales and dolphins as evidence to convict poachers and protect the endangered marine animals, an official said yesterday. The tactic is meant to outwit poachers who try to cover their tracks after catching whales and dolphins by cutting off the animals’ heads, tails and fins, said Hsia Jung-sheng (夏榮生), an official from the Council of Agriculture. “What they don’t know is that the government has set up a comprehensive databank of DNA from whales and dolphins,” she said. “Using molecular biotechnology, experts can easily pin down the species of whales or dolphins even if the sample is just a scrap of meat.” Coast Guard officials last week discovered a haul of dolphin meat weighing more than 1.3 tonnes in the northeastern fishing port of Suao (蘇澳). All species of whales and dolphins are protected by conservation laws and any person found violating the law faces a prison term of up to five years and a fine of up to NT$1.5 million (US$47,000).
■ SOCIETY
IELTS offers extra goodies
Registered candidates for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam will have extra benefits this year, the British Council Taipei said, as it has developed 30 hours of new examination preparation materials available free online for test candidates. Alison Markwick, director of the council’s English Language Services, said the self-study preparation materials, titled Road to IELTS Online and written by the British Council, were now available as a free, added-value IELTS service. The course complements other forms of IELTS training and takes the test candidate through all four parts of the exam — reading, listening, speaking and writing — she said. The material gives explanations on question types, provides tips on how to handle the tasks and provides online scoring of exercises so that candidates can assess their level and progress.
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