■ Piracy
Crackdown comes to an end
A two-day nationwide crackdown on commercial piracy, online crimes and lottery fraud ended yesterday morning, having uncovered 20 criminal groups, with police arresting 619 suspects involved in 521 cases, according to the National Police Administration under the Ministry of the Interior. Police said various criminal rings were raided in the sweeping crackdown, which found Web sites offering pirated CDs, imitation products of famous brands, illegal lotteries and fake beauty care products. At least 70,000 pirated CDs worth NT$10 billion (US$28.5 million) and imitation glasses, clothes and watches worth NT$60 million were seized. Administration officials said that the clampdown has been highly effective in preventing piracy of intellectual property and organized crime.
■ Plastics ban
EPA wins praise
The non-profit Consumers' Foundation called on the public yesterday to support the government's efforts to limit the use of plastic bags and disposable tableware. Foundation secretary-general Chen Jen-hong (程仁宏) lauded the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for initiating the policy. He said the agency should be supported for its wisdom and courage. Noting that the prohibition of the use of plastic bags is a great step toward protecting the environment, Chen said the EPA was the only government agency to win an award from the foundation last year. Although the measures will inevitably cause inconvenience in our daily lives, Chen said, it will bring the nation closer to developed countries in environment protection and will keep Taiwan tidier and cleaner.
■ Islands dispute
Activists blast Japan
Hong Kong activists denounced Japan's move to rent three disputed islands and vowed yesterday to travel to the islands to declare Chinese sovereignty. "This is the equivalent of Japan declaring war on China," activist Lo Chau said by telephone. Lo said his group, the Action Committee for Defending the Tiaoyu Islands, hopes to raise enough money to travel to the Tiaoyutai island chain, midway between Taiwan and Japan's southern island of Okinawa, in May. The islands are claimed by Taiwan, China and Japan. The spat over the islands has long been a rallying point for Hong Kong activists. In 1996, an activist drowned after jumping overboard on a protest expedition when Japanese coast guard vessels prevented him from landing on the islands.
■ Spoonbills
Death-toll reaches 69
The death toll among endangered black-faced spoonbills wintering at the Chiku conservation area in southern Tainan County hit 69 yesterday. The last bird to die was sent to Tainan's animal disease-control center the previous day and an autopsy discovered an undigested fish in its stomach, center officials said. At the same time, another ailing black-faced spoonbill remains in critical condition, the officials added. Each year, a large number of black-faced spoonbills migrate from the Korean Peninsula and northeastern China to the Chiku wetlands to spend the winter. Some 700 have arrived so far. The rare migratory birds showed signs of illness on Dec. 9. Initial studies show that the dead and sick birds were infected with C-type botulinum.Agencies
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