HEALTH
Air quality to remain poor
Air quality is likely to remain poor throughout the four-day New Year holiday, as a cold air mass from China blankets the nation, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said yesterday. Greater Kaohsiung and Pingtung County are set to have the worst air quality, with PM2.5 levels reaching 9 on the 10-point scale today, the EPA said. PM2.5 levels measure the concentration of harmful fine particules in the air that are 2.5 microns or less in width. Also today, Yunlin and Chiayi counties and Greater Tainan can expect a PM2.5 level of 8, but it will drop tomorrow to 7, which is still considered fairly high, the EPA said. Areas of central Taiwan could also experience a particle pollution level of 7, the EPA said. The poor air quality in those areas will prevail until Sunday, the EPA said, advising elderly people and those with chest, heart or allergy problems to avoid outdoor activities. People with asthma might also need to use their inhalers more often during the period of high air pollution, the EPA said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Man punches J.J. Lin
Singaporean singer and songwriter J.J. Lin (林俊傑) was punched by a man at an autograph signing event in Taipei yesterday, but did not appear to have suffered a serious injury. Police are investigating possible motives for the attack. Lin, 33, was signing autographs while promoting his new album, Genesis, in the Ximending (西門町) shopping district when a man who appeared to be in his early 30s rushed onto the stage and took a swing at the singer, according to witnesses and an initial report by police from the Wanhua District (萬華) precinct. Lin went to National Taiwan University Hospital in an ambulance and left the emergency room shortly after arriving. The man suspected of assaulting the star was taken to a police station for questioning.
TOURISM
Arrivals hit 9.9 million
The nation saw growth in tourism from several markets last year, which culminated in a 8.9 percent annual increase in total visitor arrivals, according to official figures. The year-end data showed that just over 9.9 million visitors arrived in Taiwan last year, compared with slightly more than 8 million in 2013. The biggest increase was in the number of arrivals from South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and Europe, Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Wayne Liu (劉喜臨) said. Visitor arrivals from South Korea increased last year by an annual 55.5 percent to nearly 500,000, Liu said. In the first 11 months of last year, there were more than 1 million visitor arrivals from each of four Asian markets — China, Japan, Hong Kong and Macau — according to the bureau’s data. The breakdown showed that 3.64 million visitors were from China in the 11-month period, a year-on-year growth of 38.2 percent. The number of Japanese visitors in the period grew 16.04 percent year-on-year to about 1.5 million, and from Hong Kong and Macau numbers rose 16.94 percent to 1.24 million.
AIRPORTS
Passenger volumes rise
More than 35 million travelers came through Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport last year, a growth rate of 11.4 percent over the year. The passenger volume was the highest the airport has ever recorded, Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Co said on Wednesday. The company touted the achievement as the result of efforts to improve facilities and services, saying it has pursued growth in passenger volume, facility upgrades, runway renovation and work on a third terminal.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same 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:
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
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