■ UTILITIES
Water supply stable: official
Water supply for household and industrial use is expected to remain stable at least until the end of October, Water Resources Agency Director-General Wu Yueh-hsi (吳約西) said on Sunday. After October, if rainfall reaches at least 40 percent of the average for the same period over the past few years, water supply through the end of December is assured thanks to the recent plum rains, Wu said. Water levels in the three major reservoirs have risen significantly as a result of the plum rains, which usually fall between late May and mid-June, he said. Precipitation levels at Zengwun (曾文) and Wushantou (烏山頭) reservoirs in the south were about 80 percent of the average for the same period over past few years, Wu said. At Nanhua Reservoir (南化水庫), it was 64 percent of the average over the past few years, he said. The monsoon rains have also brought enough water for irrigation of the second rice crop this year in the southern region, Wu said.
■ HEALTH
Official warns of outbreaks
People traveling abroad, particularly to China and Southeast Asia, should take precautions against disease outbreaks in their target destinations, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Lin Ting (林頂) said on Sunday. Lin made the appeal as the peak overseas travel season is about to start with schools closing for the summer break. Popular destinations for families, such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, tend to have more serious outbreaks of dengue fever in summer, Lin said. This year, measles outbreaks have also been reported in China and several Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines and Singapore, he said. Lin urged parents to make sure their children have been immunized before taking them on overseas trips. He also suggested that people seek travel medical services or take preventive medication before embarking on their trip.
■ RELIGION
Temple to be built in France
Fo Kuang Shan Monastery, the nation's largest Buddhist monastery, said on Sunday it would build a temple in Bussy-Saint-Georges City in north-central France, which will opened to the public by 2012. The complex, designed by a French architect couple, Frederic and Polly Rolland, and Taiwan's Kris Yao (姚仁喜), will be built on environmentally friendly concepts, said Master Man Chien (滿謙), chief abbess of Fo Kuang Shan in Europe, at a dedication ceremony. It will be a modern building comprising three halls housing statues of Buddha and bodhisattvas, an art museum, classrooms and dormitories. Construction will start next month and the complex is scheduled to be completed before the end of next year, she said.
■ AIRPORT
Airport corridor collapses
A telescopic corridor at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport connecting passengers between the terminal and planes collapsed yesterday, but nobody was hurt, an airport official said. The accident at the airport's 10-year-old second terminal stunned hundreds of passengers waiting to board their planes. “It's a shame to Taiwan,” one passenger told TVBS news network. The airport, inaugurated 30 years ago, has become the target of passenger complaints ranging from leaking roofs to the lack of trolleys and the poor quality and management of airport staff. Transport authorities have launched a project to renovate the aging terminal at a cost of NT$3.2
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