WEATHER
Storms to follow heat: CWB
Taipei yesterday set a record high temperature for the year when the mercury hit 35.6°C, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said, while predicting thunderstorms in parts of the nation through Tuesday. The temperature was recorded at 12:57pm, the CWB said, adding that New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) set a record high for the year at 34.3°C. The hot weather could continue into Tuesday, accompanied by afternoon thunderstorms in northern and eastern regions, as well as mountainous areas across the nation, forecasters said. Taitung County’s Dawu Township (大武) could also see high temperatures during the period due to foehn winds, warm and dry winds that blow down the sheltered side of mountains into valleys.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
US marks heritage week
This week has been declared Taiwanese-American Heritage Week in the US to celebrate the accomplishments of Taiwanese immigrants. The week following Mother’s Day was first dedicated in 1999 by then-US president Bill Clinton; federal, state and local officials have carried on the tradition ever since. “Taiwanese-Americans are proud to be citizens of this country, which believes in democracy and equality,” Formosan Association for Public Affairs president Mark Kao (高龍榮) said. “Having our own heritage week reinforces the understanding among the American public that Taiwan is not part of China.”
SOCIETY
Museums free for two days
More than 60 museums and arts and cultural centers across the nation are to offer free admission today and tomorrow to mark International Museum Day. Those offering free admission today include the Digital Art Center in Taipei; Tainan’s National Museum of Taiwan History; and New Taipei City’s Shihsanhang Museum of Archeology, Yingge Ceramics Museum and Gold Museum, the Ministry of Culture said. The National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung, Green Island (綠島) and Jingmei human rights culture parks, and the Hualien County Stone Sculptural Museum are also offering free entry today. The National Palace Museum in Taipei and Daxi Wood Art Eco-museum in Taoyuan plan free admission for tomorrow. A total of 159 museums have also launched or are set to launch special events this month on the theme of this year’s Museum Day: “Museums for a Sustainable Society.” More information is available at the Chinese-language Web site: www.518museumday.tw.
ASTRONOMY
Saturn nears its brightest
Stargazers have a chance to see Saturn at its brightest this year when it enters opposition, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said yesterday. This year, Saturn’s rings are tilted at 24° wide and headed for a maximum of nearly 27° in 2017, meaning that they are almost as visible as they can ever be, the museum said. After sunset on Saturday, astronomy buffs can find Saturn in the southeastern sky. The planet is to brighten to magnitude zero, shining with a steady golden light, the museum said. The magnitude measures the brightness of a celestial body as seen by an observer on Earth and decreases in value the brighter an object becomes. The second-largest planet of the solar system is to remain visible through the middle of November, but will gradually darken, the museum said. The opposition of Saturn — when the Earth passes between the sun and Saturn and all three are arranged in a nearly straight line — occurs about once every 12 months.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
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
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
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: