■ National defense
Fighter jet in landing mishap
The pilot and co-pilot of an air force F-5F jet fighter were forced to land their plane on its belly yesterday morning at an air base in central Taiwan when the plane's landing gear failed to open, the Air Force General Headquarters reported. Neither pilot was injured, and the twin-seat F-5F was not damaged in the incident which occurred at 10:38am. Air Force General Headquarters officials said an investigation into the incident is underway. F-5Es and F-5Fs used to form the backbone of the air force prior to the recent commissioning of the second generation of jet fighters. The F-5F fighter is still used as part of air defenses and for training pilots.
■ National defense
Missile buy set for June
The government will buy advanced anti-missile systems from the US in June to counter the threat from hundreds of Chinese warheads, a Chinese-language newspaper said yesterday. The newspaper said the Ministry of National Defense planned to buy anti-missile weapons, including six Patriot PAC-3 missiles, worth NT$100 billion (US$3 billion). The order is part of a huge weapons deal offered by US President George W. Bush in 2001. The military proposed a US$15 billion special budget last year to pay for the anti-missile systems as well as submarines, Kidd Class destroyers and submarine-hunting aircraft. Minister of National Defense Tang Yao-ming (湯曜明) said in February the plan was to push through the US$15 billion special budget after the presidential election. The newspaper said Tang and other ministry officials reported the planned PAC-3 purchase to President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on Monday, but gave no other details.
■ Crime
`Hui' did not do it
The Keelung Police yesterday said that a faxed "confession" made by a man who called himself "Hui" on March 24 was not related to the assassination attempt on the president and the vice president. According to the police investigation, Hui is a Keelung native and is suffering from a mental disorder. As a result, he will likely be tolerated, instead of being indicted, although his behavior has violated the Criminal Code. At the same time, the police did not release Hui's full name. In the fax, Hui said that he "invested" a lot of money in illegal betting on a victory by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party alliance. However, the fax said, he was stunned because there seemed to be growing support for the Democratic Progressive Party. To ensure he would not lose his bet, he decided to "do something" to change the result of the election, the fax said.
■ Politics
Lee to go before court
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) will attend a closed-door arraignment at the Taipei District Court today. According to the summons, the court session will begin at 9:30am. Lee was summoned to the hearing regarding a scandal that concerns a huge amount of money from a secret fund that was established to secure Taiwan's diplomatic relations with South Africa in 1994. According to Taipei District Court Spokesman Huang Jiunn-ming (黃俊明), today's arraignment will be the last session before judges come up with a verdict. Huang also said that the arraignment will be a closed-door session because this case concerns national security. In the meantime, to ensure the safety of the former president, Huang said that all the court's guards will be standing by.
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