POLITICS
Tainan mayor certified
The mayor-elect of soon-to-be-created Greater Tainan municipality yesterday received his election certificate issued by the Central Election Commission (CEC). CEC Chairwoman Chang Po-ya (張博雅) presented the certificate to William Lai (賴清德) at his campaign headquarters in Yongkang, Tainan County. Lai was the first of the five winners in the Nov. 27 mayoral elections to receive his election certificate. According to Chang, the other winners will get their certificates next week. Tainan will join Taipei as a special municipality on Dec. 25 after merging with Tainan County. The other new municipalities are Sinbei City (the new name of Taipei County after its upgrade), Greater Taichung (an integration of Taichung and Taichung County) and Greater Kaohsiung (a merger of Kaohsiung and Kaohsiung County). Lai, one of two members of the Democratic Progressive Party who achieved victory in the elections, will head an administration serving a population of 1.8 million people.
CRIME
Drug dogs prove effective
Sniffer dogs helped customs agents find narcotics with a combined value of NT$150 million (US$4.91 million) in the first 10 months of this year, the Ministry of Finance’s Directorate General of Customs (DGC) reported yesterday. According to the DGC, 20 cases of drug smuggling were detected by the customs authorities with the help of sniffer dogs at major airports and ports nationwide from January to October. Five cases involved heroin weighing a total of 6.62kg, eight cases involved marijuana totaling 2.11kg, with the remaining seven cases involving 52.31kg of ketamine. The DGC began training narcotics detection dogs in July last year, with 12 squads of sniffer dogs completing the training and now serving at prime gateways to Taiwan.
HUMANITARIANISM
CGA rescues Chinese sailors
Coast Guard Administration (CGA) officials yesterday said they rescued 16 sailors from a Chinese cargo ship that sank off southern Taiwan in rough weather. They continue to search for eight men still missing one day after the 50,000-tonne Hong Wei sank in rough seas 60km off southern Taiwan. The ship was carrying iron ore from Indonesia to Dalian port in northeastern China. Three Chinese cargo ships have sunk in or near Taiwanese waters over the past three months, according to the coast guard.
TOURISM
Customized taxis offered
A total of 100 tourist taxis in eight urban areas are offering foreign travelers another choice for experiencing the country through customized routes in a cooperative venture between the organizer of the service, ezTravel, and local taxi companies. The travel company said it would benefit in particular backpackers from China once authorities give the green light for entry by Chinese independent travelers. Currently, Chinese tourists are only allowed to travel in Taiwan as part of a tour group. Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) in July said the additional measures would take effect late this year or early next year, to coincide with the Lantern Festival. The 36 designated sightseeing routes connect with major traffic systems, such as Taiwan High Speed Rail and the Taiwan Railway Administration, to make traveling more convenient, ezTravel said. In the initial stage, contracted taxi drivers will guide tourists around cities such as Taipei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung at an hourly rate, it added.
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
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
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