TOURISM
Giant ship moors in Hualien
Ovation of the Seas, Asia’s largest cruise ship, yesterday arrived at Hualien Port, bringing over 3,700 international tourists to Hualien City. Weighing 168,666 tonnes and 347m long, it is the largest cruise liner to ever berth at Hualien Port, which has welcomed eight cruise ships so far this year, said Chang Tzu-ying (張自英), an official from Taiwan International Ports Corp’s Hualien branch. Port facilities were renovated several months ago to prepare for the arrival of the gigantic vessel, Chang said. Indigenous dances were performed at the port yesterday to welcome the arrival of the ship and the passengers. The vessel, operated by Royal Caribbean International, on Friday arrived at Keelung Port from Hong Kong. It was yesterday set to return to Hong Kong after making a call in Taichung Port. The passengers were expected to visit Taroko National Park, as well as a local shrine, a railway culture park and other scenic spots.
ROAD SAFETY
Drivers cause most accidents
The majority of deaths that occur within 24 hours of traffic incidents in Taiwan are caused by error on the part of drivers, data released yesterday by the Ministry of the Interior showed. The data showed that 94.41 percent of such accidents in the first nine months of the year were the fault of the drivers involved, while passengers or pedestrians were to blame in only 4.73 percent of cases. Accidents that result in death within 24 hours, which are referred to as type A1 accidents, usually occur because drivers are not paying attention or following traffic rules, the ministry said. It showed almost half of the 997 type A1 accidents in the first nine months of the year involved scooters, 254 involved passenger cars and 195 involved trucks. In total, there were 215,703 traffic accidents in the January-to-September period, 214,647 of which were classified as type A2, meaning that they resulted in injury or death more than 24 hours after the accident, the data showed. They also indicated that most traffic accidents in Taiwan occur during rush hour.
CUSTOMS
HK dollars confiscated
Customs officials on Friday confiscated HK$216,000 (US$27,686) from a Chinese man who was caught at the airport carrying HK$294,528 without declaring it. According to a Taipei Customs official, the man, surnamed Hsin (辛), was set to depart for China from Taiwan Taoyuan International Aiport when he was inspected by a customs officer and found to be carrying the cash. Given that he had not declared the cash, the customs office returned HK$78,024 — the equivalent of the upper limit of US$10,000 in foreign currency that travelers are allowed to carry without declaration — but seized the remainder of the money. Hsin said the money was for business and that he was unaware that he had to declare it. Customs officials said cash had been confiscated several times since a new amendment to the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法) went into effect on June 28, and urged all passengers to abide by the law and remember to properly declare cash.
EARTHQUAKES
Temblor hits Nantou, Yunlin
A magnitude 4.4 earthquake jolted central Taiwan at 7:14pm yesterday, the Central Weather Bureau said. The earthquake’s epicenter was about 28.8km south of Nantou County Hall and 16.8km deep, the bureau said. The earthquake’s intensity, which measures a temblor’s actual effect, was highest in Yunlin County, where it measured 5 on the seven-tier intensity scale.
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