WEATHER
Typhoon headed north
Super Typhoon Maria could hit Taiwan directly and the chances of sea and land warnings being issued are high due to a constantly strengthening Pacific anticyclone, a Central Weather Bureau forecaster said yesterday. The storm is forecast to hit the north either on Tuesday evening or Wednesday, and sea and land warnings would probably be issued tomorrow evening, Yen Tseng-hsi (顏增璽) said. As of 2pm yesterday, the typhoon was 2,140km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) on Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving northwestward toward the island at 12kph. It was strengthening and carrying maximum sustained winds of 184kph with gusts of up to 227 kph, the bureau said.
DIPLOMACY
Envoy to Switzerland named
The Presidential Office on Friday announced that it has appointed a new representative to Switzerland. It said on its Web site that it nominated David Huang (黃偉峰), an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica. Huang was vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council from October 2004 to September 2005 and deputy representative to the US from June 2007 to July 2008. Departing Representative to Switzerland Gu Ruey-sheng (谷瑞生) is to take charge of a commission at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the office said. It on Thursday approved Representative to South Korea Joseph Shih’s (石定) request to retire from his post. Ambassador to the Marshall Islands Tang Diann-wen (唐殿文) is expected to take over Shih’s post, diplomatic sources said.
ACTIVITIES
Yilan summer festival opens
The annual International Children’s Folklore and Folkgame Festival yesterday opened in Yilan County’s Wujie Township (五結). The event features a variety of water games and do-it-yourself activities for families and children. One of the highlights this year is the Flying Fish Pirate Ship, a 50m long, 9m tall structure with a 50m waterslide, Yilan Cultural Affairs Commissioner Lee Chih-yung (李志勇) said. Another attraction is the Water Volcano, where children get to climb obstacles and slide down into a swimming pool, Lee said. Besides water-related fun, there are also more subtle games, such as indoor mazes and interactive exhibitions for people of all ages, the cultural affairs bureau said. The festival, which is held at the Dongshan River Water Park, is to feature music and dance performances by artists from 22 countries and runs through Aug. 19.
CRIME
Sedative seized in Keelung
Keelung Customs officers in March seized a large haul of the controlled substance Erimin in New Taipei City, the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau said on Friday. A cargo truck carrying 651kg of the sedative in a container destined for Malaysia was intercepted by customs officers at the Port of Taipei on March 15, the bureau said. A search revealed 2.4 million Erimin tablets packaged into 48 paper bags that were hidden between 512 similar bags containing plastic pellets, investigators said. The drug haul, with an estimated street value of NT$480 million (US$15.74 million), was the biggest cache of Erimin seized in Taiwan this year, they said. Investigators on March 29 arrested a couple in the case, and seized packaging materials and sealing machines in New Taipei City. Erimin is a brand name for nimetazepam, a hypnotic sedative that was prescribed for the treatment of severe insomnia, but was discontinued by the sole manufacturer in 2015. Taiwan classifies Erimin as a Class 3 narcotic.
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