WEATHER
Mercury to drop in the north
With a continental cold air mass rapidly approaching, temperatures in northern Taiwan are expected to dip as low as 12°C this morning, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. As the cold air mass moves southward, daytime temperatures could fall to 12°C to 15°C today, with the mercury in open, low-lying areas potentially dipping to as low as 10°C in the early morning hours, the bureau said. It would be even colder tomorrow, when temperatures in the northern half of Taiwan are forecast to fall to 11°C during the day, it said. As the coming air mass is expected to lack moisture, rainy weather that has affected northern Taiwan over the past two days would likely ease up, it added. Southern Taiwan would continue to experience relatively comfortable weather throughout the weekend, with daytime temperatures of about 14°C to 23°C, the bureau said. Temperatures are expected to rise slightly from Monday to Wednesday next week, when another approaching northeasterly wind system is expected to bring rain to northern Taiwan, it said.
RETAIL
Tsutaya opens fifth branch
Japanese bookstore chain Tsutaya yesterday opened its fifth and largest branch in Taiwan, featuring a reading environment and an area for parents to read with their children not seen at any of its other local stores. The new Tsutaya Bookstore is on the second floor of the Citylink shopping center at Taipei’s Nangang Station, a transportation hub where the MRT metropolitan rail system, High-Speed Rail network and regular railway lines converge. It occupies 500 ping (1,653m2), said Ruentex Group, the Tsutaya franchisee in Taiwan operating the new store. Tsutaya has four branches in Taipei and one in Taichung.
CULTURE
Christmas event in Taoyuan
The Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) is to host a Christmas celebration in Taoyuan tomorrow to spread festive cheer for Filipinos in Taiwan with prizes, cultural presentations and a performance by a special celebrity guest from the Philippines. The event, “2019 Paskong Pinoy: Ang Diwa ng Pasko” (2019 Filipino Christmas: The Spirit of Christmas), is to be held at the Taoyuan City Government square and aims to share the joy of Christmas, which is an important cultural festival for Filipinos, MECO Director for Assistance to Nationals Sabrina Aaron said. More than 1,500 people are expected to attend, the office said.
CRIME
Unification advocate indicted
Huang Jung-chang (黃榮章), head of the China Red Unification Party, which advocates Taiwan’s unification with China, was on Wednesday indicted for allegedly seeking to purchase petition signature forms after registering to take part in the Jan. 11 presidential race. Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office Chief Prosecutor Wu Wen-cheng (吳文城) said that an arrest warrant has also been issued for Huang, who was confirmed to have fled the nation. Seven other people were charged with helping Huang acquire the petition forms from eligible voters, Wu said. To be eligible to run, Huang was required by election law to pay a NT$1 million (US$32,787) deposit and gather 280,384 valid signatures — 1.5 percent of the electorate — in support of his presidential bid before Nov. 2. Prosecutors discovered Huang and his assistants allegedly trying to purchase the forms from students on Dcard, a social media platform, Wu 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