WEATHER
Mercury drops nationwide
Temperatures took a significant dip across the nation yesterday as a fresh continental cold air mass arrived, the Central Weather Bureau said. Early yesterday morning, a low of 13.3oC was recorded in Hsinchu, 13.8oC in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋), 14oC in the city’s Tamsui District (淡水), 14.1oC in Taichung’s Wuci District (梧棲) and 14.5oC in Taipei, bureau data showed. Daytime highs yesterday were 15oC to 16oC in the north, 18oC to 19oC in the central areas, and 20oC to 21oC in the south, as well as Hualien and Taitung in the east, the bureau said. The cold wave was forecast to be most severe between late last night and early today, when the mercury was forecast to fall to 13oC to 14oC in northern, northeastern and central Taiwan, and 15oC to 16oC in the south, Hualien and Taitung, it added.
FISHING
Search on for missing crew
Nine crew members were rescued and one remained missing after a fishing boat capsized off New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳) in the early hours of yesterday, the city’s fire department said. Firefighters and coastguard officers rescued the nine crew members — the Taiwanese captain, surnamed Yang (楊), one Chinese worker, one from the Philippines, two from Indonesia and four from Vietnam — at about 6:50am after receiving a report that a Rueifang-registered fishing vessel — the Shengfu No. 6 — had run into rocks and capsized off Nanya Fishing Port. Two of the rescued fishermen were injured and sent to Keelung Chang Gung Hospital for treatment. The National Airborne Service Corps has dispatched a helicopter to search for the missing Vietnamese fisherman.
HEALTH
Tainted lids found
Beverage lids imported from China and intended for coffee chain Starbucks in Taiwan have been found to contain excessive levels of a hazardous chemical, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Thursday. The residue was identified to be n-heptane, a solvent that is commercially available as mixed isomers for use in paints and coatings. A sample of the coffee chain’s disposable lids showed that they contained 37 parts per million (ppm) of n-heptane, higher than the allowed maximum of 30ppm, the FDA said. A total of 3,240kg of the imported lids from China have been returned to the original supplier and banned from entering Taiwan, said the FDA, which on Thursday published a list of 25 imported items that have failed safety inspections. Exposure to 1,000ppm of n-heptane vapors for more than 15 minutes can cause dizziness, headache, nausea and loss of consciousness, said Yen Tzung-hai (顏宗海), head of clinical toxicology at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. People who consume drinks tainted by the substance might experience gastrointestinal discomfort and dermatitis.
POLITICS
New Party plans China office
New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming (郁慕明) on Thursday announced that the party plans to set up a liaison office in China to serve Taiwanese expatriates. Details regarding the New Party office will be made public after further discussions with Chinese officials, he said, adding that he would visit Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai from tomorrow to Dec. 16 to promote cross-strait exchanges. “During the trip, the New Party will work to safeguard the interests of our residents currently studying and working in China, and promote further bilateral exchanges with the aim of achieving the goal of peaceful reunification,” 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
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
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