■ Accident
Search for crew expanded
The Coast Guard Administration dispatched three additional patrol vessels and expanded its search area yesterday for the four crew members of a freighter that capsized off southern Taiwan on Sunday. The admini-stration's southern Taiwan operations center had dispatched four patrol frigates to the scene immediately after the freighter Chi Hong capsized and sank in waters between Tungkang and the islet of Hsiaoliuchiu on Sunday morning. In the airborne and maritime search Sunday, only one of the five crew members of the 48-tonne cargo ship was rescued, administration officials said. Officials have expanded the search area from the Pingtung-Hsiaoliuchiu area to the Pingtung-Tainan area as it is believed strong winds and high waves may have swept the crew farther away from the scene.
■ Sports
Michael Jordan to visit
Michael Jordan, a former NBA player who is thought by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time, is scheduled to visit Taiwan this month as part of an Asian trip that includes Japan, Hong Kong and China, a spokesman for Nike Taiwan said yesterday. However, the exact date of his visit and a detailed itinerary have not been set, the spokesman said. It will be Jordan's first visit to this country, he added. In a bid to allow Jordan's fans to have the opportunity to interact with the superstar, the spokesman said that Nike Taiwan would sponsor an activity on its Web site -- www.nike.com.tw -- through which participants can pay homage to Jordan with verses and pictures.
■ Crime
Would-be killer questioned
Lai Chu-hsing (賴注醒), who was arrested Sunday for allegedly planning to assassinate President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), was taken to the Taoyuan County District Prosecutors' Office for a seven-hour interrogation. Officials say he might be charged with inciting others to commit offenses and with threatening and endangering the life of another. The Prosecutors' Office has filed a detention request for Lai with the Taoyuan County District Court and was waiting for a ruling as of press time. Lai, who sells water for a living, was originally arrested for distributing flyers advocating a revolutionary party to assassinate Chen during his upcoming inauguration ceremony. Lai is also alleged to have been designing a Web site to spread his ideas.
■ Government
Ma wants disaster plans
Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday asked all the city government's departments to prepare emergency response plans for accidents or catastrophes, including military action by China. In a meeting focusing on disaster relief, Ma said that subtle tensions exist between Taiwan and China following the presidential election and that relations between Taiwan and the US also seem to have changed. Ma said that it is important to thoroughly prepare for natural disasters -- and wars as well -- because it is difficult to predict the actions of the Chinese Communists, who do not think rationally. Ma also said that the Chungcheng District and the Hsinyi District are two areas that China might target if it attacked Taipei City, and that damage could be limited through preparation.
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