TRANSPORTATION
AIT car in fatal accident
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) confirmed that one of its official vehicles was involved in a traffic accident earlier yesterday in which a motorcyclist was killed. Local media reported that the Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 8:09am about an accident on Jianguo S Road Sec 1. One truck, two sedans and a motorcycle were involved in the incident, the reports said. The dead motorcyclist, surnamed Tseng (曾), was a senior at National Taipei University of Technology. Police investigators said they suspected Tseng collided with a taxi, which threw him into the path of the AIT vehicle. Tseng was then catapulted into the central lane, where he was hit by the truck. AIT Director William Stanton, who was in the car, was not hurt, spokesman Christopher Kavanagh said in a phone interview. The drivers of all three vehicles were being questioned by the police.
WEATHER
CWB may raise sea warning
The Central Weather Bureau (CWB) yesterday said it was likely to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Muifa late today, depending on the storm’s path. As of 8am yesterday, the center of the typhoon, the ninth storm of this year’s Pacific typhoon season, was located 1,140km east of the country, moving in a west-northwesterly direction at a speed of 13kph, the bureau said. It was packing sustained winds of 162kph, with maximum sustained winds of 198kph. With the typhoon gaining strength and moving closer to the country, meteorologists said a sea warning might be issued late today. The timing for the sea warning would depend on how much Muifa turns west and heads more directly toward Taiwan, the bureau said, adding that as Muifa moves closer, sudden rain showers were likely in northern and northeastern Taiwan starting today. The typhoon will be at its closest to Taiwan tomorrow and on Saturday, the bureau said, when rainfall is expected across the country.
TOURISM
S Korean program launched
The Tourism Bureau yesterday launched a program aimed at attracting South Korean tourists by offering them a taste of local delicacies. The bureau has prepared coupons that South Korean tourists can exchange for products such as tea and pineapple cakes in duty-free shops at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and Kaohsiung International Airport. Tourists with air tickets to Taiwan can get the coupons at the Seoul office. The coupons are valid until Jan. 15 next year. South Korea is one of the top sources of foreign tourists to Taiwan after China, Japan, Hong Kong, Macau and the US. Last year, 216,901 South Koreans visited Taiwan, bureau statistics showed.
DIPLOMACY
Medical aid for Guatemala
The government has donated medical facilities to the Guatemala Military Hospital, reports from the Central American country said. Ambassador to Guatemala Adolfo Sun (孫大成) and Guatemalan Minister of National Defense Juan Jose Ruiz Morales presided over a ceremony on Friday last week to mark the donation. Sun said the two countries had built a long-lasting military relationship, and he expressed hope that the relationship would be further expanded. Ruiz expressed gratitude for Taiwan’s support and said he was confident bilateral ties would continue to grow. He said the medical aid would benefit not only the military, but also local residents. He said he has a personal connection to Taiwan as he was taught by a Taiwanese military adviser in Guatemala in the 1980s.
CRIME
Hog drug ring cracked
Police yesterday said they had cracked a criminal ring that was running a lucrative business of supplying hog farmers in central and southern Taiwan with a banned drug that promotes leanness in animals raised for meat. In a raid late last month, police seized 112kg of the lean-meat enhancing drug and 18kg of a beta-agonist used to manufacture the drug at a warehouse in Chiayi County. The ring, based in Yunlin County, is suspected of smuggling the beta-agonist from China. According to police, 1kg of beta--agonist can produce 200kg of lean-enhancing drug by mixing it with ingredients such as milk replacer and grain powder. One kilogram of the drug added to 1 tonne of feed and fed to hogs 28 days before slaughter can enhance their growth and leanness, the investigation found. Police said the drug had been sold to farms in Taichung, Changhua, Nantou, Yunlin, Chiayi and Tainan, generating NT$50 million (US$1.7 million) in profit for the ring since last year.
FISHING
ISC elects Taiwanese
A Taiwanese representative has been elected vice chairman of the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species (ISC), marking the first time a Taiwanese has held a leadership position in an international fisheries organization, the Fisheries Agency said yesterday. The nomination of Sun Chi-lu (孫志陸), a professor at National Taiwan University’s Institute of Oceanography, was approved unanimously by ISC members during a plenary meeting held last month in San Francisco, the agency said. Also at the meeting, Taiwan presented a stock assessment report on North Pacific albacore showing stocks are healthy and recommending the ISC maintain current management measures, the agency said.
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