BASEBALL
Film trailer touted
Previews for the upcoming baseball film Kano looks set to be a staple of New Year celebrations next week. The two-and-a-half-minute trailer for the film is to be screened at 21 countdown parties, concerts and other events in 20 cities and counties, Kano director Ma Chih-hsiang (馬志翔) said. Set in the Japanese era in 1931, Kano — the Japanese-language abbreviation for the Agriculture and Forestry Public School of Chiayi (then pronounced Kagi) — tells the true story of the school’s baseball team that traveled to Japan as the underdog to play in a renowned high-school baseball tournament. The film portrays the rigorous training undertaken by the team, which was composed of Japanese and Taiwanese athletes of Han Chinese and Aboriginal origins, and how they advanced against the odds to the finals of the tournament. The director said he hopes the film will help bring back memories of the “glorious era” of Taiwanese baseball.
IMMIGRATION
Fake Italian deported
An Iranian man holding a forged Italian passport was deported from Taoyuan airport on Wednesday when inspectors found he could not speak even basic Italian. A National Immigration Agency official saw through the ruse when he tried to start a chat in Italian only to find the man, identified only as “Ramezani,” did not even know basic greetings in the language. According to the agency’s account of Ramezani’s confession, he first bought a counterfeit Italian passport near Iran’s border with Turkey from a Russian dealer for US$8,000. With only US$600 in cash, he reportedly said he planned to work in Taiwan to buy a flight to Italy, where he would seek political asylum.
INDUSTRY
ASE executives questioned
Prosecutors yesterday summoned three Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE) executives to explain their roles in the factory’s release of untreated industrial wastewater into a creek. ASE chairman Jason Chang (張虔生), chief operating officer Tien Wu (吳田玉) and president Raymond Lo (羅瑞榮) reported to the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday afternoon. They departed after questioning later yesterday. The company is the world’s largest IC packaging and testing services provider. It was the latest move by prosecutors, who had earlier obtained a court order to detain Su Ping-shou (蘇炳碩), head of ASE’s K7 plant in Greater Kaohsiung. Following the discovery of the pollution problem at the plant, the Greater Kaohsiung Government’s Environmental Protection Bureau on Dec. 20 ordered a shutdown of some production lines in the factory.
LEGAL
Subpoena issued after fight
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday subpoenaed the father-in-law of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) eldest daughter, Lesley Ma (馬唯中), for questioning over a scuffle and a legal dispute brought against him by his former friend Liang Chih-hsi (梁治希). Tsai Lung’s (蔡龍) son, Allen Pei-jan Tsai (蔡沛然), married Lesley Ma last year. Chinese-language media reported earlier this week that Tsai Lung, 59, allegedly owed Liang, 60, NT$12 million (US$400,000), and the two had a dispute which came to blows over the debt on Taipei’s Renai Road in October. Subsequently, they sued each other for assault causing bodily harm. Upon leaving the Taipei District Court yesterday afternoon, Tsai Lung told the press that he did not owe Liang any money.
HEALTH
Flu shot age limit reduced
Taipei is hoping to keep its older residents healthy next year by lowering the minimum age for free influenza vaccinations in the city to 55, effective from Wednesday. The Minister of Health and Welfare announced yesterday the change to the free vaccination system, which currently covers residents aged 60 and above. State-funded flu vaccinations will also be made available across the nation for people with chronic diseases aged between 50 an 59, also on Wednesday, the ministry said. The programs are to run until the vaccines are used up, health officials said. Data from Taipei’s municipal Department of Health showed that as of Monday, the city has received 150 reports of cases of illnesses arising from flu complications, five of which were fatal. Eighty-eight percent of the cases involved patients who had not received flu shots.
CRIME
Jacky Wu sentenced
Popular TV variety show host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) was yesterday sentenced to one year and 10 months in prison, suspended for a three-year probation period by the Taipei District Court for violation of the Securities and Exchange Act (證交法). The ruling added that Wu, who is board chairman of Alpha Photonitek Corp (APC), must pay the national treasury NT$3 million. Wu is allowed to appeal the case to the Taiwan High Court. According to the ruling, Wu collaborated with Lienming Mobile Technology chairman Hsu Fang-yang (許豐揚) to skim money from a transaction between the two firms. On Jan. 5, 2009, the two orchestrated a deal in which Lienming purchased a number of APC’s LED products for NT$180 million. The ruling said Wu pocketed NT$12.5 million from the deal, while Hsu took NT$20 million.
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