■ Athletics
Thousands to run in Tainan
Nearly 20,000 people from Taiwan and overseas will take part in a run to be held today in Tainan. The World Masters Athletes (WMA) championships, sponsored by China Motor Inc, the Chinese Taipei Road Running Association and the Tainan County Government, will play host to 211 foreign athletes from 36 countries. A total of 19,925 people will take part in the competi-tions, the largest number of countries and athletes to take part in the WMA cham-pionships. Among the athletes will be defending champion Mario Fattore of Italy and Henri Girault of France, who will be taking part in his 500th 100-km race. There will be five runs: 100km, 50km, 25km, 10km and 5km. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) will preside over the start of the first race and then will run with 2,004 athletes for 1.5km to promote exercise.
■ Defense
Advanced US missiles arrive
The US shipped advanced air-to-air missiles to Taiwan after China acquired similar Russian-built technology, it was reported yesterday. The AIM-120 medium-range air-to-air missiles, which arrived in Taiwan last month, are sufficient to counter China's AA-12 missiles and will help maintain the military balance in the Taiwan Strait, according to the Liberty Times. It said the air force is planning a live-fire test of the missile next year -- the first such tests outside the US. The air force declined to com-ment on the report. The military bought 120 AIM-120s from the US in 2000 on the condition they would only be delivered if China acquired similar weaponry. The fact that China had test-fired the Russian-made AA-12 missiles in June last year prompted Washington to deliver the AIM-120s, the report said. Air force officials have previously said the missiles would be used to arm some of the nation's 150 F-16 fighter jets.
■ Crime
China executes pair
Chinese authorities executed two men on Friday for the murder of a Taiwanese couple and their four year-old daughter, the China News Service reported yesterday. Huang Ligang (黃利剛), 22 and Cheng Liang (程亮), 29, were condemned to death by the Shanghai High Court in April. The men broke into the home of Sun Yu (宋鈺), a business-man living in Shanghai, and stabbed him, his wife and his daughter, the agency said. Huang and Cheng then fled in the couple's jeep, carrying cash and objects valued at over 80,000 yuan (US$9,600).
■ Weather
Cold front arriving
The Central Weather Bureau announced yesterday that a cold front and a light typhoon will jointly bring heavy rains to Keelung, Hengchun, the east coast and mountainous areas of northern Taiwan today and tomorrow. Typhoon Nepartak was moving west-northwest at 21kph from the seas near Manila as of 4pm yesterday. The bureau said it is still trying to figure out what impact it may have on the weather in this country.
■ Travel
Tourism fair at TWTC
The Taipei International Travel Fair opened yesterday at the Taipei World Trade Center with the aim of boosting the tourism sector, which was badly damaged earlier this year by the SARS epidemic. More than 400 organizations from 50 countries and regions around the world are displaying their sightseeing attractions in 538 booths at the fair. The exhibition will run until Tuesday.
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