LEISURE
Taipei Zoo raises prices
From Monday next week, tickets to Taipei Zoo are to rise to NT$100 for regular admission, the first price increase in 27 years. General admission for non-Taipei residents is to increase to NT$100 from NT$60, while tickets for students, the military, police officers and firefighters are to rise to NT$50 from NT$30. Tickets for groups of 30 or more are to cost NT$70 apiece. Ticket prices for Taipei residents are unchanged at NT$60, as well as those for the Education Center and trams at NT$20 and NT$5 respectively. Children younger than six, people aged 65 or older, disabled people and their caregivers, and Taipei elementary-school students with an electronic ID can still enter for free. Visitors paying with an EasyCard or other types of electronic payments may use the yellow e-ticket entrance for faster entry. The price increases were approved by the Taipei City Council on Feb. 6.
HEALTH
FDA warns on miso product
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday evening warned the public not to eat a miso product from the Japanese food company Marukome, as cockroaches are likely to have been mixed into a batch of the product. In a statement, the FDA said that 10 325g boxes of a Marukome miso product (PLUS?生味噌?美人), which are to expire on Dec. 31, had been distributed in the local market. It warned people not to buy or eat the product. The agency made the announcement following reports by Japan Broadcasting Corp and Nagano Broadcasting Systems Inc that cockroaches are likely to have been mixed into the product. The food company has voluntarily removed 107,726 units of the product from store shelves, the reports said.
TRAVEL
Cuba visits discouraged
Travel agencies are advised to adjust or temporarily suspend group tours to Cuba following recent incidents in which Republic of China (Taiwan) passport holders have been denied entry, the Tourism Administration said on Tuesday. The advisory is only a recommendation and not a ban, and travel agencies are allowed to continue selling Cuba-related tours, it said. Based on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ four-tier travel advisory regarding safety and security risks, Cuba remains under an “orange” alert, meaning unnecessary travel should be avoided, the Tourism Administration said. The ministry in December last year urged the public to put off travel plans to Cuba after a Taiwanese expatriate family in Canada reported that they had been denied entry because they hold Taiwanese passports, which Cuban immigration officials said their country does not recognize as it upholds the “one China principle.” The Tourism Administration said it has received other complaints of similar incidents from local travel agencies.
MUSIC
Ensemble wins in Prague
Kaohsiung’s Chien-chin Primary School wind ensemble won a gold prize in the Brass Orchestras category at YoungBohemia Prague 2024, a four-day festival held from Wednesday to Saturday last week, the Kaohsiung Education Bureau said in a statement on Tuesday. The ensemble performed a Taiwanese folk song suite and the national anthem in Prague’s Old Town Square, and took part in an event-related parade with other troupes. The bureau cited the students as saying that they were happy to compete and interact with musicians from around the world as, well as promote Taiwan to Europeans.
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