WEATHER
Festival to have clear skies
Chances for clear skies are high in western Taiwan during the Mid-Autumn Festival today, while residents in northern and eastern parts of the country might have to less ideal moon-watching conditions the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. As Typhoon Jelawat gradually moves away from Taiwan, a more stable weather pattern is expected across the nation, with occasional showers likely only in Yilan County, Hualien County and mountainous regions in the greater Taipei area, the bureau said. However, strong winds might continue to be felt in coastal areas, the bureau said, predicting gusts of up to 110kph in western Taiwan. Much lower temperatures are also expected during the festival, with daily lows dropping by about 3°C nationwide due to the effect of a new wave of seasonal winds passing over Taiwan during the weekends, the bureau said.
SOCIETY
Students win cooking event
Students of the Taipei Kai-ping Culinary School have won first place in an international cooking competition in the Australian city of Canberra on Friday, the second consecutive year in which students from the school took first place in the annual competition. Lin Hung-yu (林鴻宇) and Tu Jui-ting (杜睿庭) used Australian lamb and vegetables to create their winning recipe, outshining eight teams from five countries at the International Secondary Schools Culinary Challenge that took place from Monday through yesterday. The winners said they found it difficult to cope with the environment because it was different from where they have cooked in Taiwan. Taiwan’s representative to Australia Katharine Chang (張小月) attended the award ceremony and congratulated the students on their win.
HEALTH
Taipei residents live longest
Taipei residents are the longest-living in the country last year with an average life expectancy of 82.7 years, but the average for the nation’s 23.2 million citizens fell slightly by 0.03 years from a year earlier to 79.15, the Ministry of the Interior said. The life expectancy of Taiwanese men was 75.96, down 0.17 years from last year, while that of Taiwanese women was 82.63, up 0.08 years, said the ministry in a statement. The cause for the decline in average life expectancy for men was a higher number of deaths — 4,833, a 5.42 percent increase from the previous year, it added. Among the five municipalities, the second-highest life expectancy was New Taipei City (新北市) (80.46), Greater Taichung (78.98), Greater Tainan (78.44) and Greater Kaohsiung (77.97), the statistics showed. Hsinchu residents topped the other 18 cities and counties with a life expectancy of 80.45, while Taitung County (74.36) and Hualien County (75.7) recorded the two shortest life expectancies for the second consecutive year, the ministry said.
SPORT
‘Taichi’ event coming
A world championship for the traditional martial art of taichi (太極拳) is scheduled to be held in Taiwan from Oct. 6 to Oct. 7 to help promote and enhance the sport, an event organizer said yesterday. Now in its fourth year, the event, to be held in Taoyuan County, is expected to draw 500 practitioners from 19 countries around the world. The match will be divided into two categories: individual forms and weapons demonstration, and pushing hands. The federation hopes competitions will promote taichi and make it a world-class sport.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai