HEALTH
Avian flu strikes stud farm
There has been an outbreak of avian influenza at a chicken farm in Sikou Township (溪口), Chiayi County, a local animal disease control official said yesterday. The infection was detected in an annual routine disease surveillance program, said Wong Yo-chu (翁有助), director of the Chiayi County Government’s Animal Disease Control Center. No clinical symptoms were seen in any of the chickens at the black-feather stud poultry farm, Wong said. “The holding has been confined and disinfected,” Wong said, adding that his agency has imposed a ban on the movement of the roughly 5,000 chicken studs on the farm to prevent the virus spreading. The center will closely monitor 46 other poultry farms within a 3km radius of the site for three months, Wong said. The Council of Agriculture has yet to finalize a complete examination report. “Initial tests show the chickens have been infected with the low-pathogenic H5N2, rather than the high-pathogenic H5N1 strain,” Wong said.
DEFENSE
Freeway to close for drill
A 2.7km section of the Sun Yat-sen Freeway will be closed for six hours on April 12 for a warplane emergency landing and takeoff drill, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. “The freeway’s Madou section in Tainan City will be closed to traffic from 4am to 10am on that day,” said Wang Hsuan-chou (汪旋周), director of the combat training department under the ministry’s Air Force Command Headquarters. Pilots will practice emergency take-offs and landings on the freeway, also known as National Highway No. 1. The ministry said the exercise would also cover repairs and maintenance of aircraft, as well as combined tactical operations. Aircraft participating will include CH-47 transports, OH-58D scout and attack helicopters and AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters. Other planes to be featured in the drill include the F-16, Mirage 2000-5 and IDF fighters.
ENTERTAINMENT
Festival to be extended
The Ho-Hai-Yan Rock Festival, which has been held on a northern beach every July since 2000, will be expanded to a five-day event from its usual three-day format, event organizer New Taipei City (新北市) said. This year’s festival will begin on July 6 at Fulong Beach, the city government said. The festival is recognized as an important international rock event and has attracted many independent bands from around the country, including Sodagreen, which made its name at the festival in 2004. The Ho-Hai-Yan bash features a battle of the bands contest every year and bands compete for a top prize of NT$200,000.
CRIME
Insider trading case near end
The Taiwan High Court said yesterday it is about to close a case of insider trading in Taiwan Development Corp (TDC) stock involving former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) son-in-law, Chao Chien-ming (趙建銘). Chao yesterday denied he bought TDC shares based on insider information. Judges said the next hearing would be on Tuesday, and the case is about to close. The case stemmed from a dinner party attended by Chao and former TDC chairman Su Teh-chien (蘇德建) in 2005 during which prosecutors charged Chao learned that TDC was to be bailed out with a syndicated loan from several banks. In the previous trial, the Taiwan High Court sentenced Chao to seven years in prison and a NT$30 million (US$1 million) fine. His father, Chao Yu-chu (趙玉柱), received nine years and a NT$30 million fine. Both were found guilty of insider trading.
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