WEATHER
Mercury in north to drop
The sunshine and clear skies in northern Taiwan are likely to end tomorrow, with strong northeasterly winds bringing wet weather and temperatures dropping by several degrees, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. It was mostly clear across Taiwan, with highs of 25°C to 26°C and lows of 16°C to 17°C in the north, and 18°C to 19°C degrees elsewhere, the bureau said. However, the sunny weather will only last for one more day, with the mercury forecast to drop to 19°C to 21°C in the daytime, it said. It forecast that Christmas Day on Tuesday would see warmer weather thanks to a weakening monsoon, with highs of up to 24°C, but the warmth would not last until Wednesday, when another cold air front could drop the mercury in the north to 14°C.
TOURISM
Taiwan on Airbnb list
Airbnb has selected Taiwan as one of 19 destinations worth visiting next year as more Airbnb users include the nation in their booking wish lists, the firm said on Thursday. The company selected 19 travel destinations based on a combination of internal search, booking and wish list data, and said that Taiwan ranked 19th. The inclusion of Taiwan on wish lists on the platform grew by more than 100 percent from November last year to last month. The platform has always been optimistic about Taiwan’s tourism potential and hopes that the list will help its tourism industry and increase its visibility in the international tourist community, Airbnb general manager for Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan Mike Orgill said.
HEALTH
Cambodia tops dengue list
The number of imported dengue fever cases that originated in Cambodia has increased sharply to 66 this year, compared with eight last year, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said yesterday. Cambodia was the largest source of imported dengue fever cases in Taiwan this year, he said. Chuang said the total number of imported cases registered this year until Thursday was 330, with the three main sources being Cambodia, Vietnam (62) and the Philippines (56). Last year, 104 cases originated in Vietnam and 39 in the Philippines, Chuang said. The big jump in infections from Cambodia was due to an increase in Taiwanese visitors to the country this year, he added.
DIPLOMACY
Diaoyutai claims restated
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday reiterated the nation’s claim over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in the East China Sea, known as the Senkakus in Japan, after the Japanese government issued a protest to the ministry over a record number of Taiwanese fishing vessels operating near the islands, which Taipei and Tokyo both claim. The Yomiuri Shimbun on Wednesday reported that the Japanese coast guard had registered a record number of Taiwanese fishing vessels “intruding” within 12 nautical miles (22km) of the Diaoyutais, the distance normally marking territorial waters. Ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) reaffirmed that the Diaoyutais are territory of the Republic of China. The foreign ministry would engage in rational dialogue with Japan on the matter, he added. Despite the sovereignty dispute between Taiwan and Japan, fishers from both countries can operate in the overlapping areas of their exclusive economic zones in the East China Sea under the 2013 Taiwan-Japan Fisheries Agreement.
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