■ Military affairs
Safe Taiwan key for Japan
Defending Taiwan is defending Japan, political analyst Hideaki Kase said in Tokyo yesterday. Speaking at a seminar organized to promote defense cooperation among the US, Japan and Taiwan, Kase said that if China were to attack Taiwan, Japan would be plunged into a crisis similar to that before the 1894 war between the Ching Dynasty and Japan. He said that this is why Japan has begun military exchanges with Taiwan in recent years. Saying that the Communist regime in China is doomed to collapse, Kase said the most important thing for Japan now is to safeguard Taiwan's security.
■ Military affairs
Ammunition theft probed
The Ministry of National Defense said yesterday that it will track down over 11,000 bullets suspected of being stolen from the military and discipline those who are responsible for dereliction of duty. Ministry officials said that a thorough check on an ammunition depot on July 19 found a shortage of 11,700 rounds of 9mm bullets. A task force formed to investigate the missing ammunition decided that the missing rounds were ammunition that the military wanted to phase out, the officials said. The task force has since questioned three suspects and found in the home of one suspect 790 9mm bullets. The military court in Kaohsiung will continue to pursue the case. In view of the incident, the ministry will discipline the officials involved and ask for heightened management of ammunition to avoid a repeat of the incident. The ministry started a large-scale check of ammunition depots after Kaohsiung police seized a large haul of ammunition, including rocket-fired grenades used by the military, when they tried to prevent a battle between rival gangsters earlier this year.
■ Crime
Fake bomb found
The police yesterday retrieved an alleged explosive package but discovered it to be a fake. The package was discovered by pedestrians in the underpass in front of Ming Chuan University around 1:40pm yesterday. Whoever placed the package had written "Warning! This is a bomb" on the package so pedestrians immediately reported it to the police. The Taipei City Police Depart-ment's Shihlin Precinct immediately sent its explosive experts to the scene to disarm the alleged bomb but officers later confirmed that there were no explosives inside the package.
■ Society
Ma the matchmaker
Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has the chance to be a matchmaker for army Major General Chang Shao-kang (張少康). While Ma was leading a group of reporters on a visit to Kinmen yesterday, Chang's friends asked Ma to do a favor for them because Chang, 47, is now the only bachelor among the nation's generals and admirals. Chang was on a business trip in Taipei while Ma was visiting Kinmen so he did not know his friends in Kinmen had made the request of the mayor. However, when approached by reporters, Chang said that he was not worried about his marital status. "I have dedicated myself to my country," he said. "As for marriage, I will leave the decision to God." Chang said that he has dated ever since his teenage years but he has never met the right person. "It is difficult to be a soldier's wife," he said. "For example, I have to relocate from time to time. That is one reason that I am still single now."
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