WEATHER
Cold polling day forecast
A strengthening seasonal northeasterly wind is likely to send the mercury falling in northern and northeastern areas throughout the week, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. From today until Sunday, lows in those areas are likely to hover between 14。c and 16。c, with highs between 16。c and 18。c, the bureau said. Temperatures are likely to range between 14。c and 22。c in central areas, 16。c and 25。c in the south, and 17。c and 22?C in the east, it said. Brief rain showers can be expected today and tomorrow in northern and eastern areas; Thursday and Friday in eastern areas, mountainous areas in the south and areas north of central Taiwan; and Saturday and Sunday in northern and eastern areas, the bureau said. It forecast cold, wet weather for Saturday, when voters are due to elect the next president and a new legislature.
AVIATION
Airport runway to be closed
One of the two runways at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to be closed next week for maintenance before the start of the peak Lunar New Year travel period, Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport Co said yesterday. Company senior vice president Wen Yung-sung (溫永松) said maintenance is required on the south runway, which was the only one in operation for most of last year as the north runway was closed for renovation between March 6 and Dec. 24. There were about 600 flights a day landing on the south runway almost non-stop and it is only natural that damage would result, Wen said. To ensure passenger safety the company has scheduled a one-week maintenance period ahead of the expected increase in air traffic during the Lunar New Year holiday period, which starts on Feb. 8, he 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
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
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