WEATHER
Cold Christmas front likely
The nation is likely to experience sharp temperature fluctuations this week, with the current warm weather expected to last until Wednesday before a cold front is due to arrive on Thursday, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The cold air mass is expected to move southward and send temperatures plummeting on Thursday, with a chance of rain in northern and eastern Taiwan and temperatures likely to dip below 14°C in the greater Taipei area on Christmas Day, forecasters said. However, before the cold front arrives, daytime high temperatures through Wednesday could range between 25°C and 30°C in northern and southern Taiwan and lows could hover around 14°C to 17°C. Central and southern parts of the nation are expected to see large differences between daytime high and nighttime low temperatures during the period, the bureau said.
EMPLOYMENT
Immigrant job service opens
A new free employment service for immigrants has been launched, with the rate of successful job placements reaching a record high of 58 percent, the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) said yesterday. Helping new immigrants find jobs not only enables them to become economically self-reliant and attain a sense of achievement in their work, but can also provide workers to care for aging Taiwanese, WDA director Liu Chia-chun (劉佳鈞) said. There are more than 500,000 immigrants in Taiwan and over 40 percent of them need work to support their families, official statistics show. About 32.2 percent of new immigrants are covered by government labor insurance and 75.19 percent of those covered in the program earn a monthly salary of between NT$20,000 and NT$24,999, a recent ministry survey showed.
CRIME
Bullion found in luggage
A Hong Konger was on Saturday intercepted at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after she attempted to take four 1kg gold bullion ingots out of Taiwan, aviation police said. The woman, surnamed Liao (廖), had the gold in her handbag. During a X-ray security check, staff discovered the gold ingots worth nearly NT$5 million (US$150,980). The woman told police that the gold bars were gifts from friends and that she was not aware of the exact maximum amount of gold bullion she could legally take out of the nation. Customs officers returned the gold, but Liao was unable to continue her journey. The maximum value of gold an airline passenger is allowed to take out of the nation is US$20,000, customs officers said.
HEALTH
Tainan says dengue abating
The dengue fever epidemic has eased in Tainan, where the number of new cases dropped to less than five for the seventh day in a row, the city’s health bureau said on Saturday. As of Friday last week, a total of 22,732 cases were recorded in the city, an increase of just two cases from the previous day, the Tainan Department of Health said. It was the seventh consecutive day of less than five new cases per day in the city, the agency said, adding that 18 of the city’s 37 districts have been cleared of the disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there have been 42,354 reported dengue fever cases since the start of May. Tainan and Kaohsiung are where the bulk of the cases were reported, with Kaohsiung recording 18,734 cases so far, the centers said. The disease has caused 204 deaths this year, while about 98 percent of patients have recovered, the most recent statistics
showed.
POLAM KOPITIAM CASE: Of the two people still in hospital, one has undergone a liver transplant and is improving, while the other is being evaluated for a liver transplant A fourth person has died from bongkrek acid poisoning linked to the Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday, as two other people remain seriously ill in hospital. The first death was reported on March 24. The man had been 39 years old and had eaten at the restaurant on March 22. As more cases of suspected food poisoning involving people who had eaten at the restaurant were reported by hospitals on March 26, the ministry and the Taipei Department of Health launched an investigation. The Food and
A fourth person has died in a food poisoning outbreak linked to the Xinyi (信義) branch of Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in Taipei, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said on Monday. It was the second fatality in three days, after another was announced on Saturday. The 40-year-old woman experienced multiple organ failure in the early hours on Monday, and the family decided not to undergo emergency resuscitation, Wang said. She initially showed signs of improvement after seeking medical treatment for nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, but her condition worsened due to an infection, he said. Two others who
MEDICAL: The bills would also upgrade the status of the Ethical Guidelines Governing the Research of Human Embryos and Embryonic Stem Cell Research to law The Executive Yuan yesterday approved two bills to govern regenerative medicine that aim to boost development of the field. Taiwan would reach an important milestone in regenerative medicine development with passage of the regenerative medicine act and the regenerative medicine preparations ordinance, which would allow studies to proceed and treatments to be developed, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) told reporters at a news conference after a Cabinet meeting. Regenerative treatments have been used for several conditions, including cancer — by regenerating blood cells — and restoring joint function in soft tissue, Wang said. The draft legislation requires regenerative treatments
Taiwanese should be mindful when visiting China, as Beijing in July is likely to tighten the implementation of policies on national security following the introduction of two regulations, a researcher said on Saturday. China on Friday unveiled the regulations governing the law enforcement and judicial activities of national security agencies. They would help crack down on “illegal” and “criminal” activities that Beijing considers to be endangering national security, according to reports by China’s state media. The definition of what constitutes a national security threat in China is vague, Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said. The two procedural regulations are to provide Chinese