DEFENSE
Cruise missiles in production
Taiwan has confirmed for the first time that it is mass--producing cruise missiles, despite growing ties with China. “Mass production of indigenous weapons like the ones under the codenames of ‘Chichun’ and ‘Chuifeng’ is going very smooth,” Deputy Minister of National Defense Chao Shih-chang (趙世璋) told the legislature on Wednesday. “The problems with key parts and components that had previously stalled manufacturing have been tackled,” he said. The Chichun project refers to the Hsiung Feng IIE cruise missile, Taiwan’s answer to the US-made Tomahawk. Chuifeng is a project developing the nation’s long--anticipated supersonic anti-ship missile. The missiles could be launched from land or sea and would be capable of striking targets in southeast China, as well as cities such as Shanghai and Hong Kong, local media said.
IMMIGRATION
NIA cracks counterfeit ring
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday it has cracked a counterfeit ring that was producing ID cards for illegal foreign workers in Taiwan. The ring is probably the country’s largest fake ID syndicate targeting runaway foreign workers as its clientele, the agency said. In a joint operation launched by the agency and police early yesterday, 15 suspects were arrested at various locations in Taipei city and county, Hsinchu County and Miaoli County. Computers, printers and thousands of fake Alien Resident Certificates, work permits and national health insurance cards were seized. The lead suspect, identified by his surnamed Hsiao (蕭), told police that the forged documents were intended for sale to labor brokers, insurance agents, foreign workers and contractors of major construction projects where foreign labor might be needed.
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