SOCIETY
Ang Lee appreciates Taiwan
The greatest benefit of winning an Oscar for his 3D box office hit Life of Pi (少年PI的奇幻漂流) would be to get the chance to thank Taiwan under a global spotlight, Taiwan-born director Ang Lee (李安) said in Taipei yesterday. Visiting Taipei after a film promotion tour in Japan, Lee said his biggest hope was to have the chance to express appreciation to his native country, where more than 70 percent of Life of Pi was filmed. He added that the film was only made possible because of the help and encouragement received from the people in the country. Life of Pi has become the highest-grossing film of the US-based director’s career, raking in US$452 million worldwide as of Jan. 17, according to the Web site Box Office Mojo. The movie has received 11 nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture, for the 85th Academy Awards to be presented on Feb. 24.
DIPLOMACY
Speaker going to US
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) is to attend US President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony tomorrow on behalf of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Taiwan’s representative office in Washington said. Wang, who will head a six-member official delegation, was to leave Taiwan yesterday. After arriving in Washington, the group is to attend a dinner with Taiwanese expatriates today and atttend the inauguration ceremony tomorrow with Taiwan’s representative to the US, King Pu-tsung (金溥聰), the office said. The other five members of the delegation are Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Vice Chairman John Chiang (蔣孝嚴), KMT legislators Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) and Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) and Democratic Progressive Party legislators Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) and Mark Chen (陳唐山). The delegation is scheduled to return to Taiwan on Thursday. Meanwhile, King will attend the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Feb. 7.
METEOROLOGY
Temperatures to rise
Temperatures across the nation are forecast to rise, with daily highs likely to reach 23°C in most areas, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The cold surge that had enveloped Taiwan since Thursday has weakened, with warmer weather expected to extend into next week, the bureau said. Clear skies are expected until Tuesday, when increasing seasonal winds could bring showers in northern Taiwan and send the mercury dropping again, the bureau said. Temperatures will range between 13°C and 24°C in the north, 12°C and 23°C in central Taiwan and 13°C and 26°C in the south, the bureau predicted.
TRAFFIC
Traffic to be regulated
Traffic control measures on the nation’s freeways will be implemented during the Lunar New Year to help avoid traffic congestion, transport officials said. The holiday, which runs from Feb. 9 to Feb. 17, is relatively long this year and more people are expected to travel than usual because of this, the Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau said. During peak travel hours the journey between Taipei and Kaohsiung City could take as long as seven hours, the bureau said. Traffic control measures on the nation’s freeways, such as the suspension of tolls between midnight and 7am, will be applied for the entire holiday period, according to the bureau. The bureau added that on Feb. 9, Feb. 13 and Feb. 14, only vehicles with three or more passengers will be allowed to get on the freeways.
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