DEFENSE
Apache deal confirmed
Boeing Co has been awarded a contract to manufacture 31 AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters for Taiwan, the US Department of Defense announced on Monday. The total cost for the Longbow program is US$2.53 billion. A US$141.7 million firm-fixed-price contract was awarded on Oct. 29 for the advance procurement for the manufacture of the attack helicopters and also covered the production of two fixed-site Longbow crew trainers matching the AH-64D aircraft configuration, the department said. Work will be performed in Mesa, Arizona, with an estimated completion date of July 30, 2015, the department said. According to anonymous sources, the first batch of helicopters is expected to be delivered to Taiwan in the first quarter of 2014. The helicopters were first offered by the US to Taiwan in 2002, but the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency did not formally notify Congress of the sale until Oct. 3, 2008.
CHARITY
Rummage sale at TAS
The Taipei American School (TAS) Orphanage Club will hold its 41st annual rummage sale and flea market in the school’s lobby and forecourt on Saturday, starting at 10am, rain or shine. The flea market will end at 3pm, but the rummage sale will continue until 5pm. Items in the rummage sale include clothing, toys, household items and furniture. All of the proceeds from the rummage sale will benefit orphans and needy children in Taiwan. The flea market will have more than 60 people selling jewelry, clothing, toys, books and gifts for the holidays. There will also be Indonesian food and drinks for sale. Admission is free. TAS is located at 800 Zhongshan N Road Sec 6 in Tianmu (天母).
AQUACULTURE
Virus threatens abalone
Experts have suggested the nation’s aquatic farmers stop raising a type of marine mollusk commonly seen on local wedding banquet tables to eliminate a virus that has nearly wiped out the entire industry. Almost all of Taiwan’s cultivated abalone (Haliotis diversicolor) have been infected with a virus that has decreased the total harvest by 90 percent, said researcher Ho Yuan--hsing (何源興) of the Eastern Marine Biology Research Center. Taiwan’s annual production has fallen to 200 tonnes a year, down from 2,500 tonnes at its peak in 2000, he said. Many young cultivated abalone began dying for unknown reasons nine years ago, and it was only after six years of study that researchers found the abalone fry died from infection of two kinds of bacteria: Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Vibrio alginolyticus. Not long after identifying the cause, mature abalone raised in northeastern Taiwan began to die in large numbers during the winter. The mass deaths were largely caused by being in waters colder than 23°C, in which the virus spreads quickly, Ho said. To date, no method to prevent the disease has been found, Ho added.
COSMETOLOGY
Taiwanese takes silver
Taiwanese beautician Liu Pei-chun (劉姵均) took home a silver trophy for creating an impressive “dragon hairstyle” at the Organization Mondiale Coiffure World Championship of Beauty in Paris on Monday. Liu, a first-time contender in the world’s premier hairdressing competition, used 5,000 hair extensions in a wide range of colors to make a hairdo representing a dragon. The dragon hairstyle, weighing 8kg, won her the silver medal in the “fantasy hairstyle” category.
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