■ Cyber warfare
SEF asks China for help
The Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) has sent a formal letter to China asking for help in tracking down computer hackers who allegedly sent a virus to a Taiwanese software company, officials said yesterday. The letter alleged that on Sept. 2, Eha Technology Ltd received an e-mail that contained a virus, the SEF said. The e-mail came from four Web sites registered in the provinces of Fujian and Hubei, the foundation said. The Web sites were stockfound.com, Lsaeraid.com, Feeledu.net and memoryfree.com, according to the foundation's letter. ``We would like the relevant authorities to help in quickly finding the motives, the aims and the true identities of the perpetrators,'' the letter said. In recent years, fears have grown that China might enforce its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan by shutting down the nation's heavily computerized society with a cyber attack instead of a conventional invasion.
■ Health
Hsinchu man losing weight
Lu Tsung-hsien (呂宗憲), who had to be helped by firemen and a crane to leave his Hsinchu apartment after becoming ill last month, was moved from the intensive care center to a regular ward at Mackay Memorial Hospital in Hsinchu yesterday. Lu now weighs 232.7 kg, 46kg less than he did when he was admitted to the hospital on Aug. 26. Lu said he was happy to be able to leave intensive care and that his wish now is "to be able to stand up and walk out [of Mackay] within a month." Doctors said that the low-calory diet used to help Lu loose weight isn't successful very often and the continued success of the diet will depend on how well Lu sticks to it.
■ Rescue
Filipino trio saved off Palau
Three Filipino fishermen have been rescued by a Taiwanese fishing boat after they had drifted on the high seas for nearly three weeks, officials said yesterday. The crew of Hsin Yu Cheng 68 from Tungkang found the trio and retrieved the body of their companion off Palau on Sept. 5, the Coast Guard Administration said. Skipper Wu Cheng-shan (吳成山) said he was afraid the three men would have died if they were found a day later. The Filipinos said their ship lost power in a storm in the middle of last month and they had survived by catching fish and drinking rain water and their own urine.
■ Environment
Fish paradise discovered
The Council of Agriculture said yesterday it has discovered a new rare fish paradise in a mountainous region in Kaohsiung County Officials with the council's Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute said 70 percent of fish thriving in the Malishan Creek in Kaohsiung County's Maolin Village are precious fish species endemic to Taiwan. The institute has set up 17 observation stations along the 25km stream, located 2,900m above sea level, to study the creek's ecology since February last year. Institute officials said they have so far discovered eight fish species in seven genera within three families in the Malishan Creek. The fish include the Hemimyzon formosanus, the Scaphesthes alticorpus, the Acrossocheilus paradoxus and the Sicyopterus japonicus. Among them, the Scaphesthes alticorpus is listed as an endangered species subject to special protection. An institute researcher said the Malishan Creek is a typical high-altitude stream. It is a small branch of the Choko Stream which eventually flows into the Laonung River.
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