WEATHER
Cool weather to continueThe nation is expected to see the recent wet and cool weather pattern continue until Thursday, with the approach of a cold air mass expected to bring down temperatures further, the Central Weather Bureau said. Heavy rainfall is likely to continue, especially in northern, central and eastern parts of the country, brought on by a cold front and seasonal winds, the bureau said. No significant temperature fluctuations are expected until tomorrow, when a cold air mass is likely to move down to the nation and cause the mercury to fall, the bureau added. Daily lows between tomorrow and Thursday are likely to drop to 14°C in northern and northeastern areas, with large temperature fluctuations expected in other parts of the nation, the bureau said.
SOCIETY
Koo Jr allowed to visit father
Former Chinatrust Financial Holding Co vice chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒) left yesterday for the US to visit his ailing father, ChinaTrust Group founder Jeffrey Koo (辜濂松), after obtaining approval from a court to leave the country. Koo Jr is currently appealing a nine-year jail sentence handed down by the Taipei District Court for his alleged involvement in an insider trading case in 2004. The Taiwan High Court on Wednesday agreed to temporarily lift the travel ban on the condition that he post a NT$1 billion (US$34.4 million) security to ensure that he would come back to stand trial. Koo Jr’s lawyer submitted the money to the court at about noon on Friday in exchange for a reprieve of the travel ban from Friday to Dec. 21.
DIPLOMACY
Diplomat killed in Swaziland
The secretary to Taiwan’s embassy in the Kingdom of Swaziland, died in a car crash along with his wife in South Africa on Saturday afternoon, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Ministry spokesman Steve Hsia (夏季昌) said Hsu and his family had been on leave when the accident occurred, and though both Hsu and his wife died in the crash, their twin daughters had not been critically injured. Local police have already begun investigating the cause of the crash, Hsia added. The ministry would endeavor to help Hsu’s son to go to South Africa and arrange Hsu’s affairs, Hsia said, adding that the South African representative office in Taiwan had also issued a visa to Hsu’s son. Compensation and indemnities would be given in accordance with regulations, Hsia added.
DIPLOMACY
Aid donated to Saint Lucia
The government has donated US$1.8 million in aid to an infrastructure construction program in Saint Lucia to improve the quality of life for the people in the Caribbean nation, the embassy in Saint Lucia said in a statement on Saturday. Ambassador to Saint Lucia James Chang (章計平) presented the donation to Saint Lucian Prime Minister Kenny Anthony on Friday, the statement said. Anthony expressed his gratitude and said the construction program — composed of 112 sub-projects mostly aimed at building and repairing roads, hiking trails and wastewater drainage systems — covers all 17 electoral districts in the country. The program is expected to provide jobs that will reduce the country’s 24 percent unemployment rate, he said. Chang said Taiwan made the donation after finding out that infrastructure needed funding and expressed hope that the aid will help improve living conditions in Saint Lucia and that ties between the two countries would become closer.
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