TRAVEL
MOFA warns on UK measles
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is warning people planning to travel to the UK to be on the alert following an outbreak of measles. The ministry said the British media have reported that hospitals have listed more than 800 cases, with one fatality. The ministry said the outbreak occurred mainly in Wales, with 448 cases, northern England, with 354 cases, and London, with 67 cases. The British government has urged 1 million schoolchildren to be vaccinated. In addition, the WHO has notified the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that Saudi Arabia has confirmed seven novel coronavirus cases, with five fatalities and two in critical condition. The CDC on Thursday issued a Level 1 (“watch”) travel notice for 14 countries in the Middle East — Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.
ENVIRONMENT
Spoonbill tracking expanded
Taijiang National Park in Greater Tainan said that a program it started last year to fit endangered black-faced spoonbills with transmitters to monitor their migratory routes has been expanded this year. The program involves using both satellite transmitters, which can track movements across borders, and radio transmitters, which can effectively track distances up to 5km, the park said. Four black-faced spoonbills with radio transmitters and another four with satellite transmitters were released last year, the park administration said, adding that it intends to increase the number to five in each category this year. Four younger birds fitted with transmitters were released late last month — two with radio transmitters and two with satellite transmitters. The park administration added it has applied to South Korea for permission to fit transmitters on two black-faced spoonbills capable of reproducing at South Korean habitats.
HEALTH
Boxed meals mislabeled
Boxed meals sold at four major convenience store chains are high in sodium and low in fiber content, the Consumers’ Foundation said. It found that 17 of the 29 meals bought at four chains as samples contained a higher sodium content than half of the WHO’s daily recommended sodium intake of 2,400mg, the foundation said, adding that three of the samples contained sodium levels exceeding 1,900mg. The Department of Health recommends a daily fiber consumption of between 25g and 36g. However, the 29 sampled meals all failed to meet the lowest threshold, with the highest among them containing just 3.27g of fiber, it added. It said the fat content of the boxed meals was also underestimated on the labels.
TOURISM
Travel fair opens in Manila
The nation launched a two-day travel fair in Manila yesterday, in a bid to attract more visitors from the country, a Taiwanese official said. With the theme of “Time for Taiwan,” this year’s campaign highlights Taiwanese food and leisure farms, said Tony Wu (巫宗霖), director of the Kuala Lumpur office of Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau. Tour operators have high hopes for the Philippine market, as the number of visitors from the country to Taiwan rose 16.7 percent last year and 15.46 percent in 2011, Wu said. Nearly 40 officials from 10 tour operators, six leisure farms and several stores in Taiwan took part in the fair, which also featured performances by Taiwanese lion dancers, a magician and singers, as well as Taiwanese snacks.
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