Military: Singapore denies transfer
Singapore's Defense Ministry has denied a foreign wire service report that the ministry will move its "starlight" project from Taiwan to China's Hainan island. In response to an inquiry Wednesday from the Singaporean daily Lianhe Zaobao, a ministry spokesman said the report was completely unfounded. AFP quoted unnamed Taiwan military sources as saying last Sunday that Singapore has decided to move at least part of training facilities and some of its troops in Taiwan to Hainan. The Ministry of National Defense has denied the report. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said Tuesday that it has not heard about the reported development. Under its "starlight" project, Singapore has since 1975 sent troops to Taiwan to receive combat training.
Foreign affairs: US declares its support
In a section of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act passed Wednesday, the US House of Representatives declared its support for Taiwan as "a mature democracy that fully respects human rights," and reiterated that "it is the policy of the United States that any resolution of the Taiwan Straits issue must be peaceful and include the assent of the people of Taiwan." The act, House Resolution 1646, now goes to the Senate where final approval is expected soon. Representative David Wu, the first Taiwan-born US congressman, said that "Through this bill, Congress has expressed America's strong support for the people of Taiwan and their right to freely determine their own future." The bill also recognizes Taiwan as a non-NATO ally for the purpose of transferring defensive articles and services.
Crime: Bomb hoax suspect arrested
Taipei aviation police announced yesterday that they arrested a man involved in a bomb hoax on the EVA Airways flight taken by first lady Wu Shu-chen (吳淑珍) to the US. EVA Airways received a phone call from an anonymous man Sept. 19 claiming that explosives had been planted on the plane. However, the plane was allowed to take off after a thorough search was carried out and no explosives were found. The suspect, surnamed Tsen, 33, called EVA Airways from a public phone booth in Taichung County, a police spokesman said. Having checked thousands of phone calls and conducted follow-up investigations, police found that Tsen's voice was similar to that of the suspect phone call, he said. The suspect, accused of committing intimidation and an offense against aviation security, was turned over to the Taoyuan District Court for further interrogation.
Air safety: Conference comes to Taipei
The 33rd International Society of Air Safety Investigators (ISASI) meeting will be held in Taipei from Oct. 1 to Oct. 3, the Aviation Safety Council (ASC) said yesterday. This will mark the first time that the US-based international flight safety promotion organization has held its annual conference in Taiwan since its inception in 1964. The ASC, an ISASI member, obtained the right to host the 2002 ISASI congress in 1999. ASC officials said the conference will focus on accident investigation results and technologies, initiatives for the betterment of flight safety, new threats to aviation safety and future challenges. Billy Chang (張國政), director-general of the Civil Aeronautics Administration and ASC Managing Director Kay Yong (戎凱) will attend the three-day meeting.
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