■ INVESTMENT
Security worries DPP
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus yesterday called on the government not to open to Chinese investment, saying it would jeopardize national security. Former Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) chairman Hong Chi-chang (洪奇昌) said at a DPP caucus press conference that Taiwan was not short on capital, but did need more cutting-edge technology. “Taiwan welcomes direct foreign investment because it can bring cutting-edge technology to the country. However, does China lead Taiwan in technology? No. And so it is not necessary to open to Chinese investment,” Hong said. The government should refrain from promoting such an immature policy until voters have reached a consensus on opening to Chinese capital, Hong added.
■ FISHERIES
Chinese official to visit
China’s top fisheries administrator will lead a delegation to Taiwan next month for talks on cooperation in the fishing industry, Council of Agriculture Fisheries Administration Director Sha Chih-yi (沙志一) said during a fact-finding visit to Kinmen on Monday. As Kinmen lies closer to China’s Fujian Province than to Taiwan proper, there have been frequent reports of Chinese fishing boats intruding into Kinmen’s waters. Sha said he was concerned about Kinmen’s fishery environment, as Chinese poachers often use illegal fishing methods, such as electrofishing and dynamite, to stun or kill schools of fish for easy collection. Such illegal practices can be extremely destructive to the surrounding ecosystem, as electric currents or explosions often destroy the underlying habitats, such as coral reefs, that support the fish. Sha said fishery issues would also be put on the agenda for the fourth round of cross-strait talks scheduled for later this year.
■ CRIME
Alleged crime lord arrested
The alleged mastermind of a drug trafficking ring suspected of using young women to transport contraband has been arrested, the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) announced on Monday. The suspect, identified only by his surname, Liu (劉), was arrested on Sunday in Keelung on charges of having smuggled at least 8kg of high-grade heroin into Taiwan over the past two weeks alone, MJIB officials said. Liu’s capture followed the arrest of a 31-year-old woman on Thursday at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport for allegedly attempting to smuggle 10 heroin bricks weighing a total of 3.5kg into the country from Myanmar, the officials said. Since direct flights between Taiwan and Yangon were launched last year, MJIB agents said the four weekly Taipei-Yangon flights have become a new drug trafficking route. After three drug trafficking mules were apprehended over the past six months, the smugglers changed tactics by hiring young and pretty married women with children to serve as mules, officials said.
■ CRIME
Prison guards indicted
Prosecutors yesterday indicted 49 people, including 15 former and current prison guards, on bribery charges. Prosecutors are seeking jail terms of between 12 and 26 years for the guards at Tucheng Detention Center for blackmailing detainees and taking bribes from them in return for favors, according to the indictment. The guards accepted bribes of up to NT$10,000 to smuggle prohibited items for detainees, such as cigarettes, alcohol, pornography and MP3 players, the indictment said. The other people indicted included detainees and their relatives and friends.
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