ENTERTAINMENT
Expo visitor wins big
The Taipei International Flora Expo greeted its 8 millionth visitor yesterday, in line with a goal set by the event organizers. The lucky visitor, surnamed Lo (羅), was handed a coupon worth NT$218,900 to spend on a three-day stay in the presidential suite of the Grand Formosa Regent Taipei, the organizer said. The 64-year-old said she had visited the expo more than 100 times on a pass that gave her unlimited access. The expo will end next week.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
ANIMALS
Corps accused of abuse
An army unit in Greater Taichung yesterday denied an accusation by a local animal protection group that it was abusing stray dogs. Animal Rescue Team Taiwan said the commanders of an army complex at Chunghsingling ordered soldiers to capture stray dogs in the area. The soldiers would receive an extra day of leave as a reward for each stray dog caught, the group said after receiving several complaints from local residents. The soldiers abused the dogs by burning them and hitting them with rocks and sticks, according to the group. Huang Kai-shen (黃開森), director of political warfare at the 10th Army Corps denied the allegation. “Capturing stray dogs required professional skills and it is impossible for soldiers to be able to do it by themselves,” Huang said.
CRIME
Man detained over drugs
A Polish man has been detained for attempting to carry hashish through customs at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, customs officials reported yesterday. The 7.4kg of hashish was discovered during a search of the 50-year-old man’s luggage a day earlier following his arrival aboard a flight from Bangkok, the officials said.
ENVIRONMENT
WRA seeds clouds
Taking advantage of an approaching cold front, the Water Resources Agency (WRA) began making artificial rain in catchment areas in northern parts of the nation yesterday as part of the government’s anti-drought efforts. Agency workers burned water--absorbing calcium chloride salts in a cloud seeding process in the catchment areas around the Shihmen Reservoir in Taoyuan County, the Baoshan Second Reservoir in Hsinchu County and the Mingde Reservoir in Miaoli County, to promote rainfall. Most catchment areas in northern and central Taiwan have been experiencing below average rainfall since October last year, agency officials said. Water levels in reservoirs have also dropped substantially over the past six months as a result of high temperatures coupled with the low rainfall, taking levels down to an alarming 36 percent of capacity in the Shihmen and the Baoshan reservoirs, the agency said. Similar cloud seeding efforts will also be conducted in catchment areas around the Baoshan reservoir and the Liyutan Reservoir in Miaoli County later this week, depending on weather conditions, the officials said. WRA Deputy Director Wu Yue-hsi (吳約西) said that although rain brought by cold fronts can help alleviate drought conditions, it is more important for the public to be aware that water shortages can occur at any time and that the best anti-drought policy is to conserve water.
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