ENVIRONMENT
Yushan closed next month
Yushan (玉山) will be closed all of next month as part of annual measures to allow the ecosystem of the country’s highest peak to regenerate, according to the Yushan National Park Administration. Hikers will be allowed access to the 3,952m peak and other ranges in the national park until next Sunday, but will be required to spend the night at the Yuanfeng campsite instead of at the Paiyun Lodge, which is about 2.2km from Yuanfeng and is undergoing renovation, the park administration said. The administration is also sponsoring a “beauty of Yushan photo competition” to allow the public to see the different moods of the mountain through the camera lens. The deadline for entries is Feb. 28, it said.
ENVIRONMENT
Extreme weather arrives
The nation has experienced a bigger range of temperatures in recent years and this trend is expected to continue due to the influence of climate change, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday. According to the CWB’s latest statistics, the Danshui Weather Station in northern Taiwan recorded a difference in temperature of 32.7°C last year, compared with 31.9°C in 2009 and 29°C in 2008 respectively. The station said the highest temperature for last year, 37.3°C, was recorded on Aug. 4, while the lowest, 4.6°C, occurred on March 10. “Extreme weather events are happening worldwide as global warming picks up pace and Taiwan is no exception,” a CWB official said. The official added that the two criteria that define extreme weather — a huge range of temperature and rainfall — are becoming noticeable in Taiwan.
ECONOMY
Technology park planned
The government will begin the construction of an advanced technology development park in Nantou County as soon as the plan passes an environmental impact assessment currently underway, the head of the Central Taiwan Science Park Management Administration, Yang Wen-ke (楊文科), said. Once completed, the park will house 250 research and development units, including the state-funded Industrial Technology Research Institute and the Institute of Information Industry, providing about 13,000 new jobs, Yang said. No manufacturing activities will be conducted in the park, which is designed to serve the research and development of emerging and advanced industrial technology, he added. The park will be built in -Jhongsing New Village (中興新村) at an estimated cost of NT$10.7 billion (US$368 million).
AGRICULTURE
Yunlin promotes produce
Yunlin County opened a specialty hall in Shanghai yesterday in a bid to promote the county’s agricultural products. The store displays and sells about 120 kinds of fruit, meat and processed foods from the county. Yunlin County has long characterized itself as an “agricultural hub” with a wide range of crops, including oranges, pineapples and coffee beans. Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chi-fen (蘇治芬) presided over the opening ceremony of the hall, located in central Shanghai. Su said she admired the spending power of Shanghai residents and therefore had faith that Yunlin products, which have been guaranteed by the county government for quality and safety, would be well received in the city. Su also hoped that the new center would let Shanghai residents know there was more to Taiwan than simply Taipei and Kaohsiung, and that more people from Shanghai would visit Yunlin.
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