WEATHER
Sandstorm to sully air
A sandstorm is expected to hit Taiwan this weekend, affecting air quality, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday. The agency said a cold front from China is expected to carry dust from China’s western Xinjiang region and northern areas, and the whole of Taiwan will be affected. The first sandstorm of the season to hit Taiwan should cause the concentration of particulates to reach 150 to 300 micrograms per cubic meter, the agency said, or about three to six times the usual level in Taipei. “If the cold front brings sufficient precipitation, the impact of the sandstorm on air quality could be mitigated,” an EPA official said. However, the moisture brought by the cold front that arrived late yesterday is only expected to last until this morning.
FRAUD
Clerk jailed for 9 years
A former post office worker on the outlying island of Matsu was sentenced to nine years in prison for embezzling nearly NT$40 million (US$1.35 million), according to a Taipei District Court ruling on Thursday. Ho Pin-hui (何品輝) was arrested in Taipei last year on charges of stealing about NT$39.53 million between 2004 and 2005 when he worked at a post office on Dongying Islet (東引島), part of the Matsu archipelago. Investigators found Ho had turned to stealing after he suffered huge losses in an underground investment. He stole money from public funds, the savings of local residents and the salaries of soldiers stationed on the island, the court said in its decision to imprison him for nine years.
ACADEMIA
Armitage to head delegation
Former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage will head a delegation of academics from the Project 2049 Institute, a think tank focused on the Asia-Pacific region, that arrives in Taiwan tomorrow, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. The delegation will meet President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and visit various government agencies, including MOFA, the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Economic Affairs. It will also visit the American Institute in Taiwan, the Democratic Progressive Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-affiliated National Policy Foundation. Separately, Jeffrey Bader of the Brookings Institution will arrive in Taiwan tomorrow, MOFA said. Bader, a former director for Asian affairs at the US National Security Council, will meet with Ma, Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) and National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Hu Wei-jen (胡為真) during his stay. Bader will deliver a speech on Wednesday at a seminar sponsored by the Taipei Forum Foundation, a non-governmental organization co-established by former NSC secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起).
AVIAN FLU
H5N2 found in Fude Market
Positive traces of H5N2 avian flu were detected in chicken samples from the Fude Market in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Sanchong District (三重), the city government’s agricultural bureau said yesterday. An inspection was conducted on March 6 and samples sent for testing. The Council of Agriculture confirmed on Thursday that there were positive traces of the H5N2 virus and alerted the city government yesterday. Saying the chicken samples were healthy, the city government said it was still tracing the source of the virus, adding that it has carried out a disinfection of the Fude Market.
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