NATIONAL DEFENSE
Lung Teh wins boat bid
The navy yesterday announced that Lung Teh Shipbuilding Co had won a bid to build prototypes of a 450 tonne fast-attack missile boat, with plans for completion by the end of 2014. Colonel Chu Hsu-ming (朱旭明) said the navy signed the contract with the company on May 4. Lung Teh will start construction in six months and plans to complete the platform and weapons system in 30 months. Because Lung Teh has never built war vessels for the navy, the navy will send officials who were involved in the development of the Kuang Hua VI fast--attack boats to supervise the project, Chu said. The new type of missile boat has a central cross-linked structure with a top speed of 38 knots (70kph). Plans for the indigenous development of the corvette were first made public in 2009 under the Hsun Hai (“Swift Sea”) program.
TOURISM
Ship passengers rescued
More than 150 people were rescued from a stricken Taiwanese passenger ship near China’s coast yesterday after the vessel started taking in water. The Golden Dragon — with 153 people on board, including five crew members — was on its way from Matsu Island to China’s southeastern province of Fujian when it ran into difficulties. Lienchiang County Government in Matsu said in a statement that the leak likely happened when the ship hit a large chunk of wood under water. Meanwhile, a spokesman for Fujian Province’s maritime affairs bureau said that the passengers and crew were rescued late yesterday morning and had been safely taken to land.
BUSINESS
Cake shop to get help
The Greater Taichung Government will help keep a well-known local pastry shop open in light of its long history and its status as part of the city’s culture, Taichung Deputy Mayor Hsiao Chia-chi (蕭家旗) said. Hsiao made the remark after local media on Sunday reported that Tai Yang Tang (太陽堂), which makes sun cakes (太陽餅), a famous Taichung delicacy, was shut down on Sunday after its owner said he could not find apprentices to take over his business. The store, which has been open for more than 60 years, is said to be the original bakery where the city’s signature cake was invented. There are about 800 sun cake pastry shops in Greater Taichung. Hsiao said he would ask officials at the city’s Economic Development of Bureau to look into the matter and discuss the possibility of encouraging enterprises to invest in the business.
CRIME
Fraud suspects arrive
Twelve Taiwanese suspects arrested in Thailand for their alleged involvement in a telephone scam that targeted Chinese were repatriated to Taiwan on Monday night, the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau said yesterday. Taiwanese and Thai authorities have been cooperating to crack down on cross-border fraud rings, the bureau said, adding that 36 suspects were arrested in this case, including 12 Taiwanese, 22 Chinese and two Thais. The suspects allegedly set up a server in Thailand and defrauded Chinese from January to last month, the bureau said. It is estimated the gang accrued nearly NT$100 million (US$3.39 million) in illegal profits in four months, it added. After overnight questioning, the 12 Taiwanese fraud suspects were taken into custody by prosecutors early yesterday, the bureau said. For the first time, suspects were sent back to Taiwan directly without going to trial in Thailand, the bureau 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
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