TRAVEL
Asiana 747 makes last stop
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday became the final overseas stop for Asiana Airlines’ last Boeing 747-400 plane, as the South Korean carrier prepares to retire the giant commercial jet known as the Queen of the Skies. The 747-400, registered as HL7428, touched down in Taiwan at 11:24am after taking off from Incheon International Airport at 10:15am and was greeted by firetrucks festively spraying it with jets of water as it taxied its way to Gate D6. The gate was chosen for its symbolism, having been the same gate where China Airlines retired its last passenger 747-400 on March 20, 2021. At 1:34pm, HL7428 took off from Taoyuan for its final trip in the skies back to Incheon before it was set to be retired. The plane’s final voyage drew the attention and attendance of many aviation aficionados and fans of the airline, completely selling out. A Hong Kong-based South Korean passenger said he was taking his mother on the final voyage to remember a trip he took with his parents to the US 15 years ago on the same plane. Another traveler, a Japanese student enrolled at a Taiwanese university, said he bought a ticket to Incheon on the plane out of interest in the model. All passengers who flew on either leg of the 747-400’s final flight were presented with commemorative luggage tags, Taoyuan ground crew personnel said.
SOCIETY
Crosswalk changes planned
People would see more green-and-white pedestrian crossings and more distance allotted for turning vehicles at intersections if a planned traffic amendment focused on improving pedestrian safety is implemented, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said. If passed, the amendment to the Regulations for Road Traffic Signs, Markings and Signals would give clear protocols for local governments to follow, ministry official Chu Da-ching (朱大慶) said. The amendment advises local governments to redesign pedestrian crossings to reduce the number of traffic accidents around intersections, the ministry said. Measures include moving crossings further away from intersections and painting crossings white and green. The eye-catching green is meant to warn approaching vehicles to slow down as they approach the crossings, Chu said. Crosswalks should be designed 3m to 5m from intersections to give drivers turning longer to react to moving pedestrians and avoid blind spots, the measures say. Local municipalities currently only have a guideline introduced last year advising them how to improve pedestrian safety. Several cities and counties have already implemented some of the new traffic regulations and said they have had positive results.
SPACE
Taiwan joins satellite show
Taiwan last week took part in this year’s Satellite Exhibition in Washington, with a pavilion displaying the nation’s achievements in the fields of microwave antennas, key satellite components and materials. The Taiwan Space Pavilion aimed to showcase the nation’s satellite innovations and capabilities, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US said. It was set up by Taiwan Space Agency (TASA), the Industrial Technology Research Institute and industry players. Tsai Hsin-hsuan (蔡欣璇), a TASA specialist in industry promotion, said that one of the highlights of the Taiwan pavilion was the TASA-developed Global Navigation Satellite System-Reflectometry (GNSS-R) employed by the domestically developed weather satellite Triton to collect GNSS signals reflected by the Earth’s surface. As for the Formosat-7 constellation, which was launched in 2019, Tsai said the combination of observation data collected by the GNSS reflectometry and the data provided by Formosat-7 can help improve the accuracy of severe weather forecasts. Participating Taiwanese manufacturer YTTEK Technology showcased its new product — a high- speed satellite modem — while Min Chun Precision exhibited a ground-based weather radar system. The Satellite Conference and Exhibition is the largest annual gathering for the satellite and space communities.
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