SOCIETY
Tsai promotes 3D animation
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday promoted a locally produced 3D animation and urged people to support local animators. “Winter break has just begun and Taiwanese animation film Tai Chi Cats (貓影特工) is in theaters now,” Tsai wrote in a Line post alongside a cartoon depicting her wearing earphones and cat ears, and holding her cat. Tsai praised the film as an original animation created by a Taiwanese team. It tells the story of how a group of cat-shaped aliens from another planet save the Earth. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) supported the film by watching it in a theater in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) on Saturday. The 83-minute film, directed by Kent Chang (張永昌), was produced by Kent Animation Digital Independent Production.
HEALTH
Second Chinese denied entry
A Chinese woman was yesterday denied entry into the nation for failing to pay a NT$200,000 (US$6,488) fine for carrying pork products from areas affected by African swine fever over the past three years. The woman surnamed Shih (石) was caught carrying 80g of Chinese sausages at Kaohsiung International Airport and issued a fine. After she refused to pay the fine on the spot, the National Immigration Agency required her to board a flight back to China at 6:35pm. It was the second case of a Chinese being denied entry since the new regulation took effect on Friday. A Chinese tourist caught illegally carrying pork and beef jerky at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Saturday paid the fine and was allowed into the nation, the Council of Agriculture said.
HEALTH
Chickens infected with flu
Samples taken from about 100 dead chickens found near a stream in Hsinchu County have tested positive for the avian influenza virus, the county’s Animal Disease Control Center said on Saturday. The carcasses were infected with the H5 strain of avian flu, a pathogenic virus that is causing global concern as a potential pandemic threat, center official Peng Cheng-yu (彭正宇) said. Farms within 3km of the site were disinfected and cleared of any virus activity, he added. The county’s Environmental Protection Bureau has teamed up with local police to find the chickens’ source to make sure that other birds have not been contaminated, he said. People found guilty of endangering public health by abandoning infected animals or failing to report large numbers of potentially infected animals could face a fine of up to NT$1 million under the Act for Prevention and Control of Infectious Animal Disease (動物傳染病防治條例), Peng said.
WEATHER
Temperatures to increase
Temperatures are to increase today as a cold air mass weakens, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday, forecasting highs of 20°C. However, early morning temperatures would remain low, and the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures might reach 10 degrees in northwestern Taiwan and nine degrees in other areas, it said. The bureau had earlier issued a warning for an overnight cold snap for areas north of Changhua County and along the coast of Yilan County, forecasting a low of 10°C due to the cold air mass moving in from China. Temperatures would further increase on Wednesday and Thursday before northeasterly winds begin to gain strength on Friday, sending the mercury plummeting again in northern and northeastern Taiwan, the bureau 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
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