■Travel
CKS passengers up
The CKS International Airport had 7,247 departing passengers on Saturday, the highest number since May 1, an official of the airport said yesterday. A total of 13,041 passengers passed through the airport in northern Taiwan Saturday, with arriving passengers totaling 5,794. The number of departing passengers has been greater than the number of arriving passengers for six consecutive days. On May 12, the number of daily arrivals and departures at Chiang Kai-shek International Airport dropped below 8,000 for the first time in 24 years.
■ Public works
Water supply sufficient
A water administration official said yesterday that he is optimistic the supply of water to the greater Taipei area in the second half of this year will be sufficient. An official of Feitsui Reservoir Administration said yesterday that Feitsui Reservoir, the main source of water supply to the greater Taipei area, received 81mm of rainfall on Saturday. Heavy monsoon rains added about 12 tonnes of water to the reservoir on Saturday, raising its water level 2.71m to 135.29m. The official said typhoons may bring more rains to the reservoir in the summer.
■ Nature
Lightning strikes voyeurs
As if it was divine retribution, three men were struck recently by lightning while they peeped at a pair of lovers having passionate sex in a car in a hillside area in Taipei, police said yesterday. Hiding in a broken hut and each using a high-powered telescope, the three were so transfixed on their activity that they were oblivious to the lightning bolt hitting the hut, the police said. The officer said the three, who remained speechless for several hours, suffered minor surface burns on their hands and legs, while their hair stood on end and their eyes gazed into the middle distance.
■ Crime
Counterfeit renmenbi seized
Police have seized US$12.09 million worth of forged Chinese renmenbi bank notes while tackling a criminal group, police said yesterday. Five suspects were arrested during a raid on a factory in the central city of Tali late Saturday, police said, adding that four others were also seized in a simultaneous crackdown in a nearby city. The police also found 20 cartons of counterfeit documents ranging from identification cards, land deeds, and car plates to car licenses. The criminal group had planned to launder the bogus bank notes in China and smuggle illegal firearms and drugs into the country, the police said.
■ Crime
Navy caper cracked
Two brothers have been arrested after police announced Sunday they had smashed a criminal ring involved in looting a bank at the country's largest naval base. The duo, only identified by their surname Chi (齊), confessed to the crime that stunned the country, police officer Hu Mu-yuan (胡木源) from Kaohsiung City told reporters. Police are hunting for another two suspects, who are still on the run. The Chi brothers were retired soliders from the Tsoying naval base in Kaohsiung, the police said. The crime happened Wednesday when the Chis and a third man, wearing surgical masks and naval uniforms, fired a warning shot after entering the bank.
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
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
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