■ Defense
Shipbuilder bids for vessels
The state-run China Shipbuilding Corp (CSBC) will actively bid for the contract to build 29 new generation missile speed boats for the Republic of China Navy, CSBC sources said yesterday. Although the navy has not finalized the procurement plan, the CSBC and several domestic shipbuilding companies have prepared to bid for the contract worth about NT$10 billion (US$322.58 million). CSBC Chairman Han Pi-hsiang (韓碧祥) said that his company is more than capable of building these new generation missile boats and delivering them on time. The first prototype of the new generation missile boat, designed and constructed by the Navy Shipbuilding Plant in Kaohsiung two years ago, has been commissioned into service. Han said that given the CSBC's experience in building first generation missile speed boats -- including the 50-tonne Seagull-class missile boat -- for the navy, his company is the most suitable candidate for the contract. The missile boats are expected to greatly enhance the ROC Navy's deterrence capability.
■ Society
Suicide center to be set up
As the number of Taiwanese people suffering depression exceeds 700,000, Minister of Health Hou Sheng-mou (侯勝茂) pledged yesterday to establish a national suicide prevention center in six months. In a legislative question-and-answer session, Hou was invited to report the government's efforts to prevent suicide. The Department of Health (DOH), said Hou, has set aside a NT$40 million for the establishment of the suicide prevention center. The DOH formed the plan for a suicide prevention center several years ago, but the project has been repeatedly delayed. Legislators questioned whether Hou would be able to keep his promise. Suicide became one of the top-10 causes of death in Taiwan in 1997. Official statistics showed that about 3,900 people commit suicide in Taiwan every year and that one fourth of females have suffered from depression at some point in their lives.
■ Society
Trash generation falls
Each resident of the country yielded an average 0.709kg of garbage per day last year, the lowest amount ever recorded, Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) officials said yesterday. The amount represents a fall from a record high of 1.143kg in 1997, with the daily per-capita level dropping every year since then to 0.97kg in 2000 and 0.752kg in 2003, EPA statistics show. Thanks to private-sector cooperation and the government's recycling policy, a total of 1.55 million tonnes of recycled material was collected around Taiwan last year, EPA officials said, noting that the amount of overall garbage also fell to 5.86 million tonnes last year from the 6.16 million metric tons recorded for 2003.
■ Culture
Taiwanese art on display
Artifacts housed in the National Taiwan Museum are to be put on display at the Czech National Museum, the Council for Cultural Affairs (CCA) said yesterday. CCA Chairman Chen Chi-nan (陳其南) is scheduled to attend the opening ceremony for the exhibition in the first half of next month. The exhibition, titled "A Thousand Faces of Formosa -- The Nature and Tradition of Taiwan," is part of an exchange project between the CCA and its Czech counterpart. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is expected to send a message to the exhibition, in which he will laud it as a "model for cultural exchanges between national museums."
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