WEATHER
Cool temperatures forecast
Northeasterly winds are expected to continue throughout the weekend, keeping temperatures cool and bringing occasional rain to much of Taiwan, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Early morning temperatures yesterday in northern Taiwan dropped to 22°C to 23°C, while lows in the rest of the nation were 24°C to 26°C, the bureau said. Starting last night, humidity levels were expected to rise, increasing the chance of rain in central and northern Taiwan through the rest of the weekend, it said. Temperatures are to remain relatively cool today and tomorrow, with highs in the mid-20s forecast for the north and east, and in the upper-20s to low-30s in the west and the south, it added. Heading into the Mid-Autumn Festival next weekend, the bureau said it expects mostly overcast skies with the possibility of afternoon showers from Thursday to Sunday, with scattered rain in the north and on the east coast.
TOURISM
Forest entry fees half-price
Taiwan’s 13 forest recreational areas are to sell tickets at half price from the Mid-Autumn Festival to the Double Ten National Day holiday weekend — Oct. 1 to Oct. 11, the Forestry Bureau said. Entry fees to these areas, including the Alishan National Forest Recreational Area in Chiayi County and the Kenting National Forest Recreation Area in Pingtung County, during the period would range from NT$50 to NT$300, the bureau said. Taiwanese and foreign residents can also visit one of the areas for free as part of a promotion that extends until the end of the year, it added.
SOCIETY
Paiwan weaver honored
A 72-year-old Paiwan woman in Pingtung County was on Tuesday named a “living national treasure” by the Ministry of Culture for her skilled weaving technique that preserves an important element of Paiwan culture. Ljumiyang Pacekelj (許春美) is one of only eight “national treasures in the county,” and the only person in Taiwan to have mastered the most traditional Paiwan weaving techniques, county officials said on Friday. The National Craft Achievement Award winner and county-certified master of traditional crafts said that traditional Paiwan weaving has largely disappeared over the past few decades, adding that the best way to preserve the tradition is to use them in fashionable products. Ljumiyang said that she hopes to pass on Paiwan culture to the next generation by teaching — regardless of whether the students are Aborigines or Han Chinese, men or women — and through publishing books on Paiwan weaving techniques and motifs.
INDUSTRY
Four injured in factory fire
Four workers at Cheng Shin Rubber Industry, Taiwan’s largest tire maker, were injured yesterday in a fire at its Changhua County factory, the company said. The fire broke out at 11:52am in the factory’s rubber processing department, and the workers were sent to hospitals to be treated for smoke inhalation, the company said in a statement. The fire occurred in a 200m2 area on the third and fourth floors of a building where rubber items were stored, which contributed to the heavy smoke at the scene, the Changhua Fire Department said. Workers had already attempted to put out the fire with a hose when firefighters arrived, fire department official Tsai Ching-tien (蔡清添) said, adding that the fire was put out in an hour. There was no immediate explanation for what started the fire, and Tsai said that an investigation was needed to determine where it began and what caused it.
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