■ Weather
South may get typhoon's rain
Typhoon Krovanh formed Wednesday night to the south of the Philippines, but it is unlikely to hit Taiwan, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. Bureau forecasters said the typhoon, located at 18.8 degrees north and 129.2 degrees east as of 8am yesterday, is unlikely to reach Taiwan. However, it may bring heavy rains to the south.
■ Crime
Ship found but not crew
The government suspects foul play in the disappearance of the crew of a fishing trawler that was found empty near the Indonesian island of Java, authorities said yesterday. The Chan Cheng Tsung disappeared late last month and was found Wednesday. Its "crew, cargo of fish and equipment were all missing," said fisheries official Sha Chih-yi. The ship, registered in Liuchiu, had three Taiwanese on board -- including its captain -- along with two Chinese and four Indonesians, Sha said. ``We would like Indonesia to find out whether the Indonesian crewmembers are involved,'' he said. Indonesian waters are notorious high-risk areas for ships, which are commonly robbed or hijacked by pirates.
■ Politics
Veterans plan parade
A parade and an evening party will be held in downtown Taipei today to commemorate the Battle of the Taiwan Strait, which began on Aug. 23, 1958. The commemoration is sponsored by the KMT and the "Confederation of Veterans of the Aug. 23 Battle." On Aug. 23, 1958, Chinese troops began to shell Kinmen. In the first 36 hours, the island was battered by 94,000 rounds of artillery. Over the next 42 days, more than 400,000 mortar shells rained down on the island before the attack was repulsed. A KMT spokesman said the battle symbolizes the honor it is to serve in the armed forces to defend Taiwan. He said the battle has an important meaning, but the DPP has ignored it. Organizers said an estimated 8,000 veterans of the battle and a few KMT and PFP legislators will participate in a parade from Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall to the 228 Memorial Park, the site of the party.
■ Transport
Plane makes risky landing
A passenger plane from Taipei glided onto a runway at Shangyi Airport on Kinmen Island yesterday while trying to land amid a heavy downpour, forcing the airport authorities to shut down the facility. The MD82 passenger plane of Far East Air Transport Corp, which departed from Taipei at 11:14am with six crew members and 147 passengers on board, landed at 12:03pm. The plane was covered in mud but no one was injured. The airport was reopened later yesterday.
■ Military
Navy disputes media reports
Navy General Headquarters disputed media reports yesterday that a navy anti-submarine aircraft made a forced landing at Shuinan Airport in Taichung earlier in the day. The navy said in a press release that the S-2T was on a post-maintenance test flight when its pilot spotted an engine-fire warning signal. The pilot immediately made an emergency landing, the press statement said, adding that thanks to the pilot's appropriate handling, the plane landed safely and didn't veer off the runway as some media reports had claimed. The navy added that the plane's smooth landing should not be described as a forced landing. It dismissed as "misleading" media reports that the S-2T was stranded on the runway.
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