ENVIRONMENT
Crocodile alert issued
Authorities yesterday warned the public to stay out of a Pingtung County river where at least one local has recently been bitten by a crocodile. The attack took place this month near Tunkang River (東港溪), said an official at the local fire department. “We have dispatched more officers to patrol the area and to remind the public to stay away from the river,” she said. Crocodiles are not native to Taiwan, but she said 30 escaped from a breeding farm during a flood five years ago. Seventeen of the runaways were never found and it appears that some have have bred in the wild, as two recently caught crocodiles bore no tags, local media said.
TOURISM
Taichung hosting farm fair
A tourism fair showcasing Changhua County’s recreation farms opens on Saturday in Taichung. Fresh farm products and other county specialties will be sold and a limited number of coupons for free stays at the rural getaways will be given away at the two-day fair, which will be held at Feng Le Park. Changhua County Commissioner Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源) said many farm owners will be present to introduce visitors to their farms’ unique scenery and delicious food. He invited everyone to visit the fair, and as an incentive, the county government is offering super low price coupons for farm stays.
TOURISM
Matsu seeks flower ‘identity’
Matsu residents proudly presented their latest handicraft creations in Taipei yesterday, highlighting handmade pottery items, pillows and sheets with Japanese honeysuckle decoration, as well as a teddy bear dressed in wedding gown and holding a bouquet of Japanese honeysuckle. Lienchiang County Government Secretary-General Liu Yu-yin (劉羽茵) told a news conference that the idea was to make a flower that’s commonly seen all over Matsu a symbol of the island. She said that, although the design was ready, the products would not go on sale until next year.
DEFENSE
Government holds exercise
High-ranking government officials yesterday took part in a two-day exercise that took place at a Ministry of National Defense facility located on Taipei City’s Tungpei Street, a government official said yesterday. The exercise was held yesterday and today under the theme of national security, said the official, who declined to be named, adding that the first session simulated the government’s response to an attack on the country’s territory by international terrorists whose nationalities were also not identified. As Taiwan is an important international financial market, market fluctuations would send shock waves around the world, the official said. The main purpose of the exercise was to ensure stability and order of the local market under terrorist attacks lest the country be considered a loophole in terrorism prevention, he said.
SOCIETY
Music festival gears up The annual Sun Moon Lake Music Festival in Nantou County will open on Oct. 8 and present a series of firework and live music shows, including a performance by the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Sun Moon Lake National Scenic Area Administration said yesterday. Now in its third year, the nearly month-long gala will feature symphonies, jazz and drumming concerts and an aboriginal dancing show, it said. The line-up includes the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Japanese pianist Makoto Ozone, conductor Paul Chiang (江靖波) and the Philharmonia Moment Musical.
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
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