WEATHER
Rainy days ahead: bureau
More rain is expected in the next few days as the nation comes under the influence of consecutive weather fronts, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Unstable weather was forecast to hit northern, eastern and central Taiwan beginning yesterday, followed by higher chances of rain between tomorrow and Sunday, when another front is expected to pass over the country, the bureau said. Temperatures should remain around 18°C to 24°C in the north and between 20°C and 28°C in the south until Saturday, it said. However, a significant drop in the mercury is likely over the weekend and into Monday due to the arrival of a cold air mass. Daily lows could plummet to 13°C in coastal areas, it added.
FISHERIES
Rare shark catch probed
Coast guard officials in Taitung yesterday said they were investigating a fishing boat suspected of violating a ban on catching a rare shark species. The officials said they were checking a fish market when they found the 31kg shark on the deck of a Singang Harbor-registered fishing boat. The shark was identified as an oceanic whitetip, a large pelagic species that inhabits tropical and warm temperate seas. They reported that it was the third incident this year of fishermen being caught with this kind of shark. Oceanic whitetip numbers are low and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission announced a complete ban on their catch beginning on Jan. 1. Inspections have been stepped up to implement the ban.
TRAVEL
American dies in accident
An American woman was killed and another injured when the scooter they were riding ran off the road on Tuesday on Green Island (綠島), police said. The deceased, identified as Anna Rosemary Harris, 18, died of a neck injury at the scene. Roberta Maria Preisinger, 54, suffered a broken wrist and facial injuries and was taken to a hospital in Taitung County. Her injuries were described as not life-threatening. The rental scooter that they were riding veered off the road when going downhill and fell about 9m down a ravine, the police said. Four other people were traveling in the group, but a police officer answering press inquiries late on Tuesday said that details about the accident had yet to be established, because there was no one on hand to interpret for the Americans.
SOCIETY
Nation has fewer children
The number of children in the nation has fallen dramatically over the past five years, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday, a day before Children’s Day. Children under 12 accounted for 11 percent of the nation’s total population last year, down from 13.3 percent in 2007, it said. The DGBAS said the government would continue to carry out child-related social welfare measures to ensure that children receive basic financial support and live a healthy life while easing Taiwanese couples’ angst over having and raising a child. According to DGBAS statistics, 314,000 people received parental leave subsidies totaling NT$5.33 billion (US$178.39 million) last year, up from 233,000 people receiving NT$3.92 billion a year earlier. Under the policy, new parents can take parental leave of up to two years before their child turns three, and they can receive 60 percent of their monthly salary during the first six months of the leave period.
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