TOURISM
Raptor-watching tours set
The Tourism Bureau is launching a series of ecotourism events to celebrate the northern migration of raptors over the next few weeks. The bureau said yesterday it would hold guided bird-watching tours in the north coast and Guanyinshan National Scenic Area on April 19, 20 and 27 and May 4 for those interested in getting a look at gray-faced buzzards and Chinese sparrowhawks. The peak migration season for raptors begins after the spring equinox late this month, when frequent rainfall forces the birds of prey to land or fly low, making it a prime time for watching the birds, the bureau said. The season is likely to continue into May, the Taipei-based Chinese Wild Bird Federation said, adding that Guanyinshan (觀音山) in New Taipei City, Baguashan (八卦山) in Changhua County and Ken-ting (墾丁) in Pingtung County are among the best places to catch a glimpse of the aerial predators.
METEOROLOGY
US weather chief visiting
US National Weather Service director Louis Uccellini is visiting Taiwan from today to Sunday to attend a meteorological meeting in Taipei, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday. He is set to give a keynote speech — titled “Taking Weather Forecasts to the Next Level: Linking Forecasts to Impact Based Decision Support Services” — at the annual meeting of the Meteorological Society of Taiwan tomorrow. He is also expected to meet with leading figures from Academia Sinica, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and the Environmental Protection Administration. The AIT said the visit would provide a vital “opportunity for scientific and environmental cooperation ... and contribute to joint efforts to address global climate change.
CHARITY
Rice donated to 17 nations
The nation is to double its contribution to international food aid this year by donating 17,400 tonnes of rice to 17 countries, the Agriculture and Food Agency said. The rice is expected to be shipped by June 30 and it is estimated it could save 5.8 million people from starvation, the agency said. While 5,100 tonnes are being sent to typhoon victims in the Philippines, 3,100 tonnes are for Syrian refugees in Jordan. Another 2,400 tonnes are being shipped to Haitians still recovering from the destructive 2010 earthquake that hit the Caribbean country. The other beneficiaries are Cambodia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, South Africa, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique, Solomon Islands, Turkey, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Tuvalu.
EDUCATION
Innovative course a hit
The term “required course” usually makes college students roll their eyes, but one class at National Chiao Tung University has instead captured the interest of students at the school in Hsinchu City. The class, entitled “Love, Sex and Law,” relates to current events, including an assignment for students to observe a court trial. The students also need to debate issues such as surrogate motherhood and fraudsters using romance as a weapon. The choice of guest lecturers has been no less innovative than the curriculum itself, ranging from lawmakers to a prostitute. The purpose of the course is to instill gender-friendly views and legal common sense via discussion of issues stemming from romantic relationships, said Carol Lin (林志潔), an associate professor. The course is designed to teach students how to avoid “landmines,” such as encroaching on a partner’s privacy and how, after things turn sour, to handle gifts given out in better times, Lin 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