■ National defense
Arms budget set
The military has budgeted US$14.7 billion to buy submarines, anti-submarine aircraft and PAC-III anti-missile systems from the US, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday. "The Ministry of National Defense has budgeted NT$500 billion [US14.7 billion] to buy eight diesel submarines, three PAC-III anti-missile system and dozens of P-3C anti-submarine planes," the newspaper said. The budget has yet to be passed by the legislature. US President George W. Bush approved an arms sale package in 2001 that included the sale of 12 P-3 anti-submarine aircraft, four diesel submarines and four Kidd-class destroyers.
■ Society
Fund to aid blind begins
The Cultural and Educational Foundation for the Blind announced the beginning of a movement to raise funds for walking canes for the blind. The foundation is cooperating with clothing line Baleno to sell T-shirts. Funds from sales will go towards the production of walking sticks and training courses for the visually impaired in the use of their new sensing canes. The foundation hopes to raise at least NT$8.8 million towards 10,000 canes the foundation plans to donate to the blind. "Currently, most visually-impaired people are afraid to go out because pedestrians and drivers often do not realize that they are blind. We hope to promote the use of the globally-recognized canes to encourage the blind to leave their homes and increase public awareness," said Dylan White (白紀齡), foundation director.
■ Crime
Reporters sue troublemakers
The Taipei City Photo Reporters Fellowship today issued a statement yesterday condemning the violence against members of the media during the 410 rally Saturday and calling for swift retribution for the troublemakers through the judicial system. In attacking the reporters, the statement said, the assailants were suppressing the release of the truth and free speech. Over 10 reporters were injured in Saturday's riot. The rally, held by pro-blue camp supporters to demand the establishment of a committee to investigate the pre-election assassination attempt made on President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), turned violent late Saturday night as rally members attempted to tear down the barricades blocking them from the presidential office. Afraid that police would be able to use media images to identify mob members, members turned on media representatives. Four reporters and news crew members from local media networks Era News and Eastern Television (ETTV) sustained injuries that needed hospital care.
■ Crime
Attack investigated
Police questioned yesterday five suspects over the killing of a Bangladeshi man working for a Taiwanese firm and the wounding of another local man employed by a South Korean company in the port city of Chittagong. Mohammad Babul Hossain, an accountant working for Taiwanese-owned Fu-Wang Foods Ltd, was shot dead Sunday in Chittagong by gunmen who robbed him of 300,000 taka (US$5,172). In the other attack, Golam Rabbani, managing director of the South Korean Youngone export processing zone, was critically injured when he was shot in the neck and his watch and wallet, containing an unknown amount of cash, were stolen. "We have arrested five suspects who have criminal records in connection with the two incidents," Shafiquddin Ahmed, Chittagong's chief police detective, said.
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