RECREATION
Fulong to mark 22nd year
Fulong Beach, a seaside resort in the northeast tip, is inviting former lifeguards, staff and lunch-box sellers who worked there in 1957 to attend its 60th anniversary on Thursday next week. The Northeast and Yilan Coast National Scenic Area Administration made the call on Tuesday and published several old photographs of the beach. The beach in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) was formerly operated by the Taiwan Railways Administration before it was transferred to the Tourism Bureau branch. The agency and Fullon Hotels and Resorts are to hold joint activities to celebrate the anniversary.
SOCIETY
Memorial road opens
A path memorializing Yanfen (鹽分) area’s literary history was unveiled in the campus of Peimen Senior Agricultural and Industrial Vocational School in Tainan’s Jiali District (佳里) on Wednesday. During the Japanese colonial period, seven renowned writers of the Taiwan New Literature movement hailed from the area that was then known as the Hokumon District.The seven are celebrated by installation art pieces and plaques that were donated by alumni and friends of the school, with the 80m path built in the shape of a paint brush, school principal Chang Fu-hsiang (張福祥) said.
COMMUNICATION
NCC approves 2G plan
The National Communications Commission (NCC) on Wednesday approved plans by Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Telecom and Far EasTone Telecommunications to use part of the bandwidth in their 4G telecom network to offer 2G services until the end of August. The approval came as part of the government’s plan to help 2G service subscribers migrate seamlessly to 4G, as the government is to revoke 2G operating licenses after they expire on June 30. As of June 2, the nation had about 145,000 active 2G users, the commission said, adding that some of them are already using 4G SIM cards on 2G mobile phones. Among the 145,000 2G service subscribers, about 100,000 are individual account holders, it said.
HEALTH
Turkeys culled in Yunlin
A total of 1,811 turkeys were culled at a poultry farm in Yunlin County yesterday after it was found to be infected with the avian flu virus, the county’s Animal and Plant Disease Control Center said. The type of avian flu virus remained to be confirmed, the center said, adding that more than 50 turkeys died at the farm over the past three days. The center said there were sporadic cases at the farm early this month, but the owner did not report them to the authorities, failing to recognize the severity of the situation.
ENVIRONMENT
Temple cuts incense burners
Lungshan Temple (龍山寺) yesterday announced that it will reduce the number of incense burners from three to one starting today, in an effort to curb PM2.5 particulate emissions. The move means that worshipers will only have to burn one incense stick instead of placing several of them in different burners during their visits, effectively reducing the release of PM2.5 pollutants, temple authorities said. Worshipers will be advised to place their incense in the main burner for Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, before starting their visit during peak times, the temple said.
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