TRAVEL
Taiwan 3rd in Boracay visits
Taiwan was the third-largest contributor to tourism on the Philippine island of Boracay last year, according to data from Philippine tourism authorities. The number of Taiwanese visitors to the island was 39,706, the third-highest among all countries. South Korea was the No. 1 source of tourists to Boracay, with 208,665 visitors, followed by China with 200,794. A Taiwanese fisherman was shot dead by Philippine Coast Guard personnel on May 9 last year in an overlapping exclusive economic zone of the two countries. Taiwan imposed a red alert travel advisory to the Philippines and there was a 33 percent drop in Taiwanese visitors in the months after the incident. Boracay recorded more than 1.36 million visitor arrivals last year, up nearly 12 percent from the previous year, according to the Philippine Department of Tourism.
WEATHER
Pollution warning issued
The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) warned yesterday that residents of western and southern Taiwan who have respiratory problems or allergies should avoid outdoor activities, as the level of air pollution in those areas is quite high. The concentration of air particles over western Taiwan was between 95 and 115 on the EPA’s Pollutant Standards Index (PSI), and between 100 and 120 over Greater Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, EPA data showed. Both levels fall within a PSI range that is defined as unhealthy for sensitive groups, the agency said, adding the particles were carried by winds coming into the country from offshore. Dusty atmospheric conditions were likely in some areas of central Taiwan, including Greater Tainan and Yunlin, Chiayi and Taitung counties, as a result of windy conditions, the agency said.
SOCIETY
Iruan leaves for home
Iruan Ergui Wu (吳憶樺), a Taiwanese-Brazilian teenager who returned to Taiwan earlier this month for the first time since a bitter custody battle more than a decade ago, left for home yesterday with his adopted mother, Etna Borkert and brother. The three arrived in Taiwan on Jan. 3. The most important event of this trip was the reunion with his Taiwanese relatives and elementary-school classmates in Greater Kaohsiung, Wu said at a farewell party hosted by the Rotary Club of Taipei Nanmen. Wu’s parents never married and his Brazilian grandmother, Rosa Leocadia DaSilva Ergui, had looked after him following the death of his mother from cancer. His father, a Taiwanese fishing boat skipper, brought Wu to Taiwan to visit his family in March 2001, but died just weeks later. The death of Wu’s father triggered a custody battle between Ergui and Wu’s Taiwanese relatives. He was finally returned to Ergui’s custody in February 2004.
DIPOLOMACY
Canadian group visiting
A group of Canadian lawmakers is visiting the nation to learn more about its political and economic development and cross-strait ties, as well as to promote bilateral ties, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The delegation, Senator James Cowan, is on a six-day visit that will wrap up on Thursday, the ministry said in a statement. Several of the lawmakers are making their first visit to Taiwan, including Dominic LeBlanc, Mark Eyking and Sean Casey. The delegation is scheduled to meet with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Cabinet officials and lawmakers. The group’s itinerary also includes visits to the Industrial Technology Research Institute and the Hsinchu Science Park, the ministry said.
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