■ Shipwreck
Fisherman missing
A Vietnamese crewman working aboard a Taiwanese fishing boat is missing after his vessel sank off Taichung's harbor, according to the boat's skipper. Three Taiwanese aboard the vessel were rescued by two other fishing boats operating nearby. The man went missing after floating in the sea for hours awaiting rescue, said Hung You-yun, captain of the ill-fated Sheng Fu Fa. The boat, based out of Wuchi port in Taichung County, developed engine problems while fishing seven nautical miles from Taichung on Friday afternoon, according to Hong. An emergency exit at the stern of the ship broke loose after being battered by high seas, the boat began to take on water and sank rapidly. All four crewmen jumped overboard with life preservers. The captain and the two others -- his adult sons -- were rescued two hours later by two fishing boats that rushed to their aid, but the Vietnamese crewman was missing. A search was continuing yesterday.
■ Economy
Stock plan not yet final
A plan for legislation that would allow overseas companies owned by Taiwanese nationals to trade their stocks on the local bourse has not yet been finalized, an official of the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. MAC Vice Chairman Huang Chie-cheng (黃介正) said that the issue is pending discussion by related government agencies, while the MAC will have to further consult with Taiwanese businessmen operating in China about the matter. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said earlier this week in an interview with a local television station that overseas companies owned by Taiwanese should be welcome to trade their stocks in their motherland.
■ Obituary
Business campaigner dies
John C.I. Ni (黎昌意), former director-general of the Small- and Medium-sized Enterprise Administration under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, died yesterday of a heart attack. He was 64. Ni, a prominent advocate of small- and medium-sized businesses while serving in the post and formerly Taiwan's representative to Hong Kong, died at the Tri-Service General Hospital in Taipei. Ni was the son of Ni Yue-si (黎玉璽), once an influential figure in the military serving as chief of the general staff from 1976 to 1978 and in various other key posts. Ni Yue-si died last year. John Ni's daughter is a well-known local disc-jockey.
■ Festival
GIO lanterns shelved
The public will not be able to see the Government Information Office's (GIO) lanterns of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac during this year's Lantern Festival. Due to its limited budget, the GIO will not participate in this year's festival. For the past 12 years, the GIO had contracted private manufacturers to provide oversize lanterns of the 12 zodiac animals. The legislature froze 75 percent of the GIO's annual budget this year, forcing the office to adopt belt-tightening measures.
■ Bird flu
Fact-finding trip conducted
Center for Disease Control Director-General Su Ih-jen (蘇益仁) returned from Vietnam yesterday after concluding a bird flu fact-finding trip. Su first visited the Thai capital of Bangkok on Thursday, where he met officials in charge of public health and agriculture to gain detailed information about a human death caused by the H5N1 bird flu virus in that country. From there, he proceeded to Ho Chi Minh City.
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