■ACCIDENTS
Taiwanese caught in blaze
A Taiwanese national has been confirmed injured with burns to 65 percent of his body in an inferno that swept through a nightclub in Bangkok on New Year’s Eve, Taiwan’s representative office in Thailand reported late on Thursday. Marss Kuo (郭萬成), vice chairman of the Bangkok-based Charoen Pokphand Group, was taken to a hospital where he underwent surgery, a staff member of the representative office said. The staff member said the office would provide any assistance required by Kuo’s family, who had already arrived in Bangkok. The fire in the Santika club killed 59 people and injured more than 240 others. Police are still trying to determine the cause of the blaze. Taiwanese officials in Thailand were also trying to find out from the Thai authorities whether any other Taiwanese were among the 30 victims who remain unidentified.
■AGRICULTURE
Ma sponsors orange orchard
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) paid NT$80,000 to sponsor part of an orange orchard in Gukeng Township (古坑), Yunlin County, yesterday to help farmers in the region survive an orange glut that has driven prices to levels that mirror their costs. Despite the government’s efforts to boost demand through exports and domestic promotions, the retail price of oranges has fallen to about NT$10 per kilogram, close to farmers’ production costs. Ma said he would donate the oranges to charities or disadvantaged groups. He also urged private companies to sponsor orchards or farmland to help farmers ride out the ongoing economic downturn. The money Ma spent yesterday was from the special “state affairs fund” budgeted for his discretionary use as president. In response to press’ inquiries, Ma said he would use his own money in future to buy oranges and other farm produce to help reinvigorate the domestic economy.
■CRIME
Banned substance seized
The Taoyuan office of the Investigation Bureau announced on Thursday that its agents had seized 200kg of hydroxylimine hydrochloride — a raw material in the production of ketamine — a day earlier from inbound air cargo at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. The office said in a press release that its agents were informed of a suspicious chemical by officials from the Taipei Customs Office and that a test proved that the material was hydroxylimine hydrochloride, a precursor to ketamine. The chemical has been listed as a Class D narcotic by the Cabinet since 2007. The news release said the agents detained the owner of the cargo, surnamed Lin, 43, late on Wednesday night, questioned him and then referred him to the Taoyuan Public Prosecutors’ Office early the next day to face criminal charges. The investigators have estimated that the 200kg of hydroxylimine hydrochloride can be used to produce over 100kg of ketamine, with a street value of NT$70 million (US$2.14 million).
■EARTHQUAKES
Quake rocks the south
An undersea earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale struck southern Taiwan yesterday, local seismologists said. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties. The quake hit at 9:39am approximately 81.2km southwest of Hengchun (恆春), Pingtung County, at a depth of 93km, the Seismology Center said. The quake could not be felt in Taipei.
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