Restrictions on foreign tourists who want to climb Yushan (玉山), Hsuehshan (雪山) and Hehuanshan (合歡山) could be loosened, possibly by adopting policies similar to Japan’s regulation of visits to Mount Fuji, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said.
Taiwan’s mountains are attractive not only to local climbers, but are internationally renowned, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) said at a public hearing on Tuesday.
However, trifling paperwork for applications, difficulties with regard to traveling to the mountains and the crude boarding facilities provided at higher altitudes, as well as decentralized management by the agencies involved, all give foreign climbers pause, she said.
Restricted mountain areas that are favored by foreign travelers include Yushan’s summit, the east side of the main summit of Hsuehshan and the north peak of Hehuanshan, ministry special consultant Cheng Chih-hung (鄭智鴻) said.
Plenty of people are interested in climbing Taiwan’s highest peak, but travel agencies need to be able to guarantee lodging about a year in advance, he said.
Lodging is the key to whether hiking tours sell, Cheng said, citing a Taiwanese travel agency that could not guarantee accommodation for a Taiwanese group looking to hike in Austria, causing the deal to fall through.
The ministry is considering adopting a hiking application system similar to the one for Mount Fuji, Cheng said.
The Construction and Planning Agency and the Forestry Bureau would be asked to investigate the needs of foreign hikers, he said.
The agencies are expected to enhance facilities, either by increasing capacity or by seeking alternative accommodation options, and improve foreign visitors’ hiking experience.
The Tourism Bureau would help with promotion efforts, Cheng said, adding that all measures are to be guided by environmental sustainability considerations.
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