WEATHER
Sunny skies forecast
Taiwan this week is to enjoy mostly sunny skies as the nation comes under the influence of a Pacific high-pressure system, but brief thundershowers will develop and drench some areas in the afternoons, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday. Daytime temperatures could top 30°C across most of the nation from today through Saturday, with brief afternoon thundershowers in the north, northeast and east and some mountainous areas, the bureau said. The highs could reach 36°C in the north today, the weather bureau said. Southeastern areas would be prone to Foehn winds — warm, dry winds blowing down the slopes of mountains — from yesterday through tomorrow, the bureau said, advising residents to be aware of a possible spike temperatures. Meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮), the bureau’s former director-general, reminded people to drink a lot of water and take precautions against sunburn and heat stroke.
SOCIETY
Taipei hotel sees brief fire
About 280 people were evacuated from the Caesar Park Taipei Hotel yesterday after a fire broke out at about 1pm, the Taipei City Fire Department said. No one was injured in the blaze, which started in a power distribution box on the fourth floor, the department said, adding that an investigation was being carried out. The hotel said the people evacuated were mostly guests at two separate weddings. The celebrations were interrupted by the fire, but were able to resume at 1:30pm. The hotel said its president has apologized to those affected and that it would discuss compensation with the newly-weds.
SOCIETY
Bird flu at Tainan egg farm
A duck-egg farm in Tainan’s Siaying District (下營) was on Saturday confirmed as infected with the highly pathogenic H5N2 and H5N8 avian influenza viruses, leading to the culling of 6,796 birds, the Tainan Animal Health Inspection and Protection Office said. It is the 15th poultry farm hit by avian influenza subtype H5 in the city this year, according to data released by the Council of Agriculture. As of 6pm on Saturday, a total of 1,428,442 birds have been destroyed at 147 poultry farms infected with avian flu viruses across Taiwan since the beginning of the year, the council said. The infected poultry farms are in Taoyuan, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Changhua and Chiayi cities as well as Pingtung, Nantou, Yunlin, Pingtung, Yilan, Hualien, counties, COA data show.
SOCIETY
N Korean defector to visit
Lee Hyeon-seo, a North Korean defector and human-rights advocate who lives in South Korea and became known after her TED talk in 2013, is to visit Taiwan and hold three talks from July 14 through July 16. The Girl With Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story, the Chinese version of Lee’s book was published in Taiwan in the same year. Lee is to hold talks at Taipei’s Songshan Cultural and Creative Park on July 14 and the Xinyi District (信義) branch of the Eslite Bookstore on July 15, and at the main branch of Kaohsiung Public Library on July 16. She was invited by Taipei-based Emily Publishing Company, the publisher of the Chinese translation. People can register for the free talks and book signings at www.accupass.com/event/register/1706130402125714344560 Lee, who was born in Hyesan in North Korea in 1980, crossed a border river to China in 1997 and entered South Korea in 2008.
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