WEATHER
Foehn winds heat Taitung
The eastern side of the nation saw temperatures surge yesterday due to hot and dry Foehn winds sweeping down from the central mountain range, according to the Central Weather Bureau. Taitung recorded temperatures of 37.3oC at 10:57am, surpassing the year’s previous record high of 36.7oC, which was set on Wednesday. Foehn winds are warm, dry winds that blow down the sheltered side of mountains into valleys. In May 2004, Taitung recorded temperatures as high as 40.2oC under the same weather conditions.
DIPLOMACY
MOFA confirms Japan trip
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is planning a visit to Japan by first lady Chow Mei-ching (周美青), Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) said yesterday, without elaborating except to say that details of her trip would be announced “at an appropriate time.” In response to a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker’s questions during a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, Lin confirmed that the ministry is planning activities for Chow’s trip next month, which is planned to center on the opening of an exhibition of artifacts from the National Palace Museum in Taipei. KMT Legislator Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) said a trip by Chow could be seen as a sign of improving relations between Taiwan and Japan. Local media reports earlier this month said that Chow is to attend the opening ceremony of the exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum. A total of 231 sets of items from Taiwan are to go on display in Tokyo. A second exhibition of the artifacts is scheduled to be opened at the Kyushu National Museum in Fukuoka Prefecture in the middle of October.
ECONOMY
Mayors voice wage concerns
The mayors of New Taipei City and Greater Taichung voiced concern earlier this week over the minimum wage and advised the central government to adjust the mechanisms to increase wages, according to a source within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). New Taipei Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Greater Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強), who double as KMT vice chairmen, made the suggestions to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the party chairman, at a weekly meeting, said the source, who attended the meeting. Accoridng to the source, Chu said that many workers disagree with the current threshold for raising the minimum wage. Chu suggested increasing taxes for companies that do not increase salaries for their employees, the source said. Hu reportedly said profit-earning businesses should give a third of their profits to their shareholders, a third to their workers and a third to charity. Ma reportedly responded by asking officials to study the mayors’ proposals.
TOURISM
Cellar opened to tourists
A newly built cellar in a former military tunnel on one of the outlying islands of Matsu will be opened to tourists from this month until October, Matsu Liquor Co said on Tuesday. The company has spent NT$20 million (US$662,140) building the “Tong-Yung” cellar to store liquor produced in its distillery in Dongyin Township (東引) on the most northern of the islands of the Matsu group. The new cellar can accommodate 336,000 liters of spirit and is now the biggest storage facility at the Dongyin distillery, company officials said. The new cellar, along with the famous “Tunnel 88” in Matsu’s Nangan Township (南竿), are both former military facilities that have been transformed into tourist attractions.
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