WEATHER
Colder weather forecast
Temperatures across the nation are expected to dip significantly from today due to the influence of a cold air mass, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Daily lows could drop to 13°C in the north until tomorrow, with seasonal winds likely to cause rainfall in that area during the period, the bureau said. According to bureau forecasts, temperatures in the following two days may fall to between 13°C and 17°C, 14°C and 19°C and 14 and 22°C in northern, central and southern Taiwan respectively.
AGRICULTURE
Bird flu detected on Penghu
Penghu Island has reported its first highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak and all chickens on the affected farm have been destroyed, an official from the Council of Agriculture said on Friday. Huang Kuo-ching (黃國青), deputy director of the council’s Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine, said the owner of the chicken farm found 150 chickens dead on Nov. 19 and alerted the health authorities. Another 50 chickens died the next day and test results obtained on Nov. 22 showed that H5N2 was to blame, prompting the Penghu County Government to order a cull of the surviving 431 chickens. Huang said the farmer had bought chickens at an auction in Chiayi on Nov. 14 and speculated the outbreak was caused by these birds. There are three other chicken farms around the affected one, but the bureau said it had detected no abnormalities there so far, although it added that safety can only be assured after a three-month observation period.
LEISURE
Cyclists brave wet weather
About 100 cyclists braved heavy rain and strong winds yesterday along the Tamsui River (淡水河) to finish a 30km ride, which was organized by the Netherlands Trade and Investment Office in Taipei to celebrate the cycling culture of the Netherlands. Participants in the non-competitive event did not have much luck as the day of the bike ride, which was originally scheduled for Saturday last week, but was postponed due to heavy rain, saw poor weather conditions once again. Only 300 out of the 800 registered riders showed up at the starting line at Dadaocheng Wharf in Taipei, and only one third of the challengers made it to the end. “The weather is very Dutch today,” said Hans Fortuin, director of the Netherlands office. Fortuin said he hoped the event could promote cycling and raise awareness of green lifestyles in Taiwan, suggesting that the country could build on the popularity of the sport to further upgrade its biking infrastructure.
CHARITY
ew York State receives aid
Taiwan donated US$100,000 on Friday to relief aid to New York State, which was recently battered by Hurricane Sandy, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York said. This was the third donation, following earlier sums of US$100,000 each to New York City and New Jersey State to help dislocated residents and reconstruction efforts in areas hard hit by the storm. New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who received the donation from Andrew Kao (高振群), Taiwan’s envoy in New York, thanked Taiwan for the aid. The fund is to be channeled into the Empire State Relief Fund set up by the state government, which has raised US$150 million, Silver said. Kao said in addition to assistance from the Taiwan government, many private groups from Taiwan have been active in relief efforts in the affected areas.
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