TRADE
US trade official to visit
US Assistant Secretary of Commerce Suresh Kumar will visit Taipei from Tuesday to Thursday, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday. Kumar, who is also the director-general of the US & Foreign Commercial Service, “is visiting Asia to build partnerships with US trade partners in the region and promote President Obama’s National Export Initiative,” the AIT said in a press release. During his visit, Kumar will meet President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), senior government officials and business leaders, the release said. The commercial service has 109 offices across the US and 127 offices in 77 countries, supporting and providing customized solutions to US businesses so that they can compete and win in the global marketplace.
ENTERTAINMENT
Taitung gets movie screening
Part one of the film Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (彩虹戰士:賽德克巴萊) opened in movie theaters nationwide yesterday, but moviegoers in Taitung County will have to wait another month since there are no movie theaters in the county. The only cinema in the mountainous region of 230,000 residents burned down three years ago and since then, efforts to build a new one have failed. However, the county government has arranged a special screening of the first installment of the Taiwanese-made film from Oct. 8 through Oct. 10 at the cultural center in downtown Taitung. The National Museum of Prehistory in Taitung, which helped arrange the screening, said it would mean a lot to the indigenous people, who make up a third of the county’s population, to see the film.
HEALTH
Boy dies from enterovirus
A 23-month-old boy in Taoyuan County who failed to be treated in the early stages of enterovirus died on Tuesday, making him the second victim of the highly contagious disease this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). CDC Deputy Director-General Shih Wen-yi (施文儀) said the boy, who had developed a fever, was vomiting and had blisters on his hands and legs, was treated at a local hospital, but discharged on Saturday. However, he was brought back to the hospital on Monday after his symptoms worsened and he was having difficulty walking and suffering tremors, Shih said. According to the CDC, there have been a total of eight severe cases of enterovirus 71 this year, including two reported deaths. A daycare center the boy attended has been forced to close until Monday, the CDC said, adding that it has not received reports of any related cases among the boy’s classmates or the other children enrolled at the center.
AVIATION
CAL tire blows on landing
A China Airlines (CAL) flight bound for Taipei from Tokyo landed safely at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday despite having blown one of its tires upon landing. CAL Flight 17, which took off from Honolulu, with a stop in Tokyo, reportedly blew a left rear tire while landing at 4:14pm, airport officials said. The aircraft’s pilot informed the control tower after discovering a problem with the tire. After landing, the plane was towed to the airport ramp for checks and the flat tire was immediately changed. All 200 passengers aboard were safe. Some passengers said they heard a strange noise when the aircraft landed, but others said they did not feel anything unusual. Officials are still investigating the cause of the blown tire.
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