■ Accidents
Woman killed in plane crash
A woman was killed and a man seriously injured Sunday after their light aircraft plowed into a mountain in mist, rescuers said. Lin Chun-yi (林君怡), 38, was dead by the time rescuers arrived at the site in the remote Meishan area, southern Chiayi county, rescuers said. The victim's boyfriend, identified as 38-year-old Liu Ming-chuan (劉明銓), suffered 80-percent burns and was undergoing emergency treatment, rescuers said. Police were investigating the cause of the crash.
PHOTO: CNA
■ Society
Ma's father in coma
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) father Ma Ho-ling (馬鶴凌) slipped into a coma after suffering a heart attack yesterday afternoon. After first aid was performed at Cathay General Hospital, Ma Ho-ling regained a pulse, but remained in a coma, according to the hospital. Ma Ying-jeou rushed to the hospital right away when informed about his father's condition. Swamped by media after visiting his father, Ma walked to the car quickly without uttering a word. Wu Yong-long (吳永隆), chief of the emergency room at the hospital, said Ma Ho-ling was sent to the hospital at around 3:45pm. He had no signs of life upon arrival, but his heart began beating again after first aid was administered. "He is still in a coma, and the hospital has put him on the danger list. The following day or two will be critical," he said during a press conference yesterday at the hospital. Taipei City's Department of Information, which sent out a text message to reporters that said Ma Ho-ling had died of a sudden heart attack, later apologized.
■ Cross-strait ties
Fruit imports a plot: Lu
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday urged the public not to be fooled by Beijing's decision to allow imports of fruit from Taiwan, calling the gesture a conspiracy. During a barnstorming tour to drum up support for Tainan County chief Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智), who is seeking a second term in elections in December, Lu said that Taiwan's fruit, much of which is produced in Tainan County, is of world-class quality and that it should be exported to Japan, Europe and the US instead of China. Lu said that shipping Taiwanese fruit to China provided China's agriculture sector with opportunities to conduct research on the produce with the intention of cultivating similar products over much larger areas at a much cheaper cost, and eventually dumping them in the Taiwan market. Lu called Beijing's decision to allow imports of Taiwanese fruit to China a political conspiracy.
■ Health
Roche to enter Tamiflu talks
The nation will hold talks with Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche on co-production of the anti-bird flu drug Tamiflu on Nov. 8, the Central News Agency (CNA) said yesterday. Taiwan's trade representative to Switzerland Wang Shih-jung (王世榕) will hold talks with David Reddy, influenza pandemic taskforce leader of Roche, at Roche's headquarters in Basel, CNA said in a dispatch from Geneva. "I have not been authorized [by Taiwan] to discuss cooperation in producing Tamiflu. The aim of the talks is to arrange for Taiwan and Roche to launch formal talks as soon as possible," CNA quoted Wang as saying.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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:
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
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