■ DEFENSE
Chopper fleet grounded
The military yesterday said it had grounded its fleet of US-built CH-47 helicopters for a safety check after one crash-landed, injuring five people on board, the Ministry of National Defense said. The helicopter was on a routine training mission when one of its two engines reportedly developed mechanical problems, the ministry said in a statement. The plane crashed in Chungliao (中寮), a remote township in Kaohsiung County, at around 10am, it said. All five people, including a military officer, two pilots and two technicians, incurred minor injuries. The military ordered that another eight such helicopters be grounded for safety checks. The military has organized a contingency group to investigate the accident.
PHOTO: HUANG CHIH-YUAN, TAIPEI TIMES
■ WEATHER
Cold front on the way
Partly cloudy skies are expected through Sunday, when a cold front is forecast to arrive from the north, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The cold front is expected to arrive by Monday and affect the whole country. Chances of rain are high in the northern and northeastern regions for Monday and Tuesday. The bureau said warm temperatures were expected this weekend before the cold front hits. Temperatures in the north could reach 26ºC, and in the south could top 30ºC. For today, the bureau forecast highs of 24ºC in the north, 26ºC in central Taiwan and the south and 23ºC in the east.
■ CULTURE
Flower festival opens
The Taipei Flower Festival will begin at Da-an Park on Sunday. The festival, which lasts until Jan. 18, will feature 330,000 plants and flowers and 14 display areas. The theme for the festival will be the Year of the Cow, Taipei City’s Parks and Street Lights Office said. An opening ceremony will be held at 10am at the park. Visitors will find music performances and handicraft markets at the festival on weekends. They will also have the opportunity to win gifts by participating in various activities, the office said.
■ ENVIRONMENT
Kaohsiung tests buses
Kaohsiung City has launched a test run of two hybrid buses that run on hydrogen and gasoline to determine whether the hybrid technology could help reduce fuel costs, city officials said yesterday. Kaohsiung is the country’s first city to test the hybrid bus, said Wang Kwo- tsai (王國材), director-general of the city’s transportation bureau. If the six-month test run produces satisfactory results, all of the city’s 440 public buses will use the hybrid system, Kwo said. The technology uses a catalyst to break down water into hydrogen and oxide. While the hydrogen is used to power the car, the oxide is used to amplify the combustion effect, the Web site of the company that produced the technology says. For each bus, 2,500 liters of diesel fuel can be saved every year — representing a NT$50,000 reduction in annual fuel expenditures. Carbon emissions are expected to be reduced 6.7 tonnes per bus per year with the new technology, the city government said. Switching all buses to hybrid fuel would help the city reduce its annual fuel costs by NT$22 million and its emissions by 2, 948 tonnes, Wang said.
■ CRIME
Man lets cat out of the bag
A peeping Tom who complained to his neighbor that her breasts were too small after watching her change clothes has been indicted, the United Daily News said yesterday. Police alleged that the man had spied for two years on his 30-year-old neighbor, who lived in an apartment 5m from his balcony. Police said that on July 29, he stole a letter from her mailbox, opened it and wrote on the back: “You are very graceful when you take off your clothes, but your breasts are too small. I hope you can wear less or wear nothing at all when you are at home. I have been watching you for a long time, so you don’t need to be shy.” Liao wrote down his mobile phone number, hoping Liu would contact him, and sent her an erotic book, the report said. She contacted police, but he argued that he had not broken the law because he had not used binoculars to watch her. Because he did not use any equipment to spy on his neighbor, a prosecutor on Wednesday indicted him on charges of violating her privacy by opening her letter.
■ DIPLOMACY
MOFA keeps Caracas office
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said it does not plan to close down its Caracas office in the near future despite Venezuela’s unfriendliness toward Taiwan. Since March last year, Venezuela has discontinued issuing tourist visas to Taiwanese nationals. It was reported that the administration of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had tried to shut down Taiwan’s representative office as a gesture to curry favor with Beijing. Currently, the office is headed by a secretary-general and all Taiwanese foreign services personnel are only granted short-term renewable visas.
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