■ Crime
Man caught with diamonds
Police in Ho Chi Minh City have seized 2,000 diamonds worth an estimated US$2 million this week from a Taiwanese man's house after he was arrested for smuggling stones into Vietnam, police said yesterday. Last week, customs officials at Ho Chi Minh City's airport arrested the 42-year-old Taiwanese man when 229 diamonds were discovered in his luggage after arriving on a flight from Taipei. During raids on his rented house on Sunday and Monday, police found the additional 2,000 diamonds, making it the largest number of gemstones ever confiscated, the police officer said on condition of anonymity. The suspect is being held for further investigation, he said.
■ Diplomacy
Allies support UN bid
Taiwan's allies Costa Rica and Burkina Faso spoke for Taiwan's bid to join the UN at the 59th UN General Assembly's annual general debate in New York, which brings together heads of state and governments from around the world, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco de la Espriella and President of Burkina Faso Blaise Compaore argued for Taiwan's bid on Tuesday. Pacheco reiterated Costa Rica's long-term support for the Taiwan's efforts to participate in the UN. Blaise cited Taiwan's positive cooperation with international organizations and its contribution to human civilization as reasons for the UN to accept Taiwan. Minister of Foreign Affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山), which is visiting the US, thanked the two allies' support for Taiwan's UN bid, a ministry statement said.
■ Fisheries
Russians fire on fishing boat
A Kaohsiung-registered fishing boat has allegedly been fired at in Russian territorial waters and the Fisheries Administration is helping to investigate the matter. Reports said the deep-sea fishing vessel, Cheng Huei No. 1, trespassed into Russian waters near the Kuril Islands and was chased by a Russian vessel after it refused to stop. The Russian boat was only able to intercept the ship after firing upon it, according to the reports. The crew, from Taiwan, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, were reported to be safe, but 200 tonnes of illegally caught fish were found aboard, the reports said. Fishery officials in Kaohsiung noted that Taiwanese fishing ships operate in the North Pacific fishing grounds for saury at this time of year and that Russia may have stepped up patrols in the region.
■ Weather
Bureau watches typhoon
The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) is closely monitoring Typhoon Meari, the 21st typhoon reported in the Pacific area this year. The weather bureau is not expected to issue any warnings for the typhoon within the next two days unless Meari hastens its pace and continues moving in a west-northwestward direction directly toward Taiwan, CWB meteorologists said. Typhoon Meari, with a radius of 100km and packing maximum sustained winds of up to 82kph, was centered about 540km northwest of Guam at 8am yesterday. Meanwhile, the weather bureau warned that the first cold front from the north this year has reached Taiwan, bringing down the mercury and showers. The chance of rain today in the northern and northeastern parts of the country is 70 percent, while it is 50 percent in central Taiwan. Temperatures in the north are expected to drop to about 28 degrees Celsius.
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