■ POLITICS
Premier warns vote-buyers
With the legislative elections approaching, Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) urged law enforcement officials yesterday to catch as many vote-buyers as possible. The premier was speaking during a seminar on combating vote-buying for prosecutors and police. He also asked officials to maintain neutrality during their operations and said he was expecting higher standards among legislators in the next term as a result of the crackdown.
■ DEFENSE
Destroyers on show
The Navy will put one of its Kidd-class destroyers on display tomorrow, while reporters will board another one during a six-hour exercise in the Taiwan Strait. The nation has four Kidd-class destroyers, based in Suao (蘇澳), Ilan County. All commissioned on Nov. 2 last year. Naval officials said the Kidd-class vessels were now the flagship of the naval battle group during missions because they are capable of coordinating battleships, submarines and aircraft. Although the ships were built 20 years ago, a Navy spokesperson said that good maintenance would allow the vessels to stay operational for at least another 20 years.
■ TRAVEL
Cross-strait flights planned
China Airlines (CAL) and Mandarin Airlines will offer four round-trip charter flights to Shanghai during the Moon Festival, a CAL spokesman said yesterday. The two carriers will use a Boeing 747-400S to fly between Taipei and Shanghai between Sept. 22 and Sept. 30, the spokesman said. The Moon Festival, also known as Mid-Autumn Festival, falls on Sept. 25. "The scheduled flights are 80 percent to 90 percent booked. We are pleased by the demand," the spokesman said. Under an agreement signed between China and Taiwan, six carriers from each side are allowed to provide non-stop charter passenger services during the Lunar New Year, Tomb Sweeping Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival. The relaxation makes it easier for Taiwanese who are working in China to return home for the holidays.
■ PPLITICS
Yu to attend Osaka meet
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairman Yu Shyi-kun left for Japan yesterday to attend the annual convention of the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations in Osaka. The party said Yu is expected to deliver a speech during the convention on the normalization of the country and boost support for the party in the upcoming legislative and presidential elections. "I will campaign for the DPP's presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and vice presidential candidate Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) there. I hope Taiwanese from around the world will return to Taiwan to vote for the DPP candidates," he said when approached for comment at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday morning.
■ LABOR
Fire damages dormitory
A fire broke out yesterday at a dormitory for foreign workers at a construction company in the northern part of the country, but there were no reports of casualties, police said. Fire engulfed the 200-ping (660m2) dormitory of CTCI Corp in Kuanyin Township (觀音), Taoyuan County, before it was brought under control by firefighters. Most of the foreign employees were at work when the fire broke out and the few left behind managed to escape, police said. Authorities said they were still investigating the cause of the fire.
■ SOCIETY
Farmer dies in accident
A 72-year-old farmer, Liao Jen-fu (廖仁富), died after he fell into a ditch while he was taking his two grandchildren, aged three and four, home on a truck in Miaoli on Sunday afternoon. The four-year-old grandchild's left shoulder and right ear were injured and the three-year-old grandchild suffered a swollen eye. As the incident happened in a remote area, nobody was available nearby to offer immediate first aid when they fell into the ditch, police said. Liao and his grandchildren were not discovered until approximately an hour after they fell into the ditch, police said.
■ TRAVEL
No entry for hairy crabs
Travelers arriving in Taiwan are not allowed to bring hairy crabs into the country from China or anywhere else, officials from the Kaohsiung Customs Office said yesterday. As it is high season for hairy crabs from China -- also known as Dazha crabs (大閘蟹) -- which are highly sought after by gastronomes, many Taiwanese tourists try to bring them into the country when they return from China. Customs officials said the crabs have been prohibited from being brought in by travelers since last October after traces of carcinogens and other banned substances were detected in crabs imported from China.
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