ASTRONOMY
Saturn to brighten up
Saturn will appear brighter and bigger early on Sunday as the planet passes closer to Earth than it has in about a year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said yesterday. Even if astronomy buffs miss the chance on Sunday at 2:28am, Saturn will remain bright and visible for the rest of the month, the museum said. The museum said it will allow public access to its rooftop telescopes every Saturday in May from 7pm to 9pm, and will offer instructions on observing Saturn. The planet’s apparent magnitude could go from 1 to 0.1, meaning it could look about 1.5 times brighter than usual, the museum said. The magnitude measures the brightness of a celestial body as seen by an observer on Earth and as the value falls the brighter an object becomes. The opposition of Saturn — when the Earth passes between the sun and Saturn and all three are arranged in a nearly straight line — occurs about every 12 months and is the closest encounter between the two planets.
WEATHER
Heavy rain expected: bureau
Torrential rain, wind and thunderstorms are likely across the nation until Thursday due to the onset of a weather front heralding the plum rain season, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. People in western Taiwan and in mountainous areas of the east should take precautions against sudden heavy rain, forecasters said. The rainy weather could also keep temperatures relatively low, especially in the north, the bureau said, adding that daytime highs will stay at current levels of about 20?C until tomorrow, when highs of 25?C can be expected. The weather fluctuations could ease up slightly the following day, with showers likely in only northern and eastern areas, the bureau said.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
No plan to scrap marines
Minister of National Defense Yen Ming (嚴明) yesterday said his ministry has no plans to abolish the marine corps, in response to concerns that the amphibious arm of the country’s navy will be scrapped under a military downsizing plan. The corps will be adjusted to meet the requirements of future tasks, but its current deployments on the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) and Itu Aba (Taiping Island, 太平島) — the biggest of the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) in the South China Sea — are still needed, the minister said in a legislative session when questioned by lawmakers on the issue. Yen said the ministry will keep its best branches and get rid of the weakest. The minister also denied speculation that the marine corps headquarters will be transferred to the army from the navy. Under a current streamlining program, the ministry plans to cut the number of troops to between 170,000 and 190,000 from about 220,000.
DIPLOMACY
Soong plans Beijing talks
People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) is to meet with top Chinese officials during a trip to Beijing this week, sources said yesterday. Soong is likely to meet with Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲), chairman of China’s National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, sources said. He is also expected to meet with China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍), the sources said. TAO spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) confirmed the visit in a statement on Sunday, saying that Soong and his delegation are to visit Beijing from today through Friday. Soong and his group have been invited by Peking University Press to the China launch of a book he wrote in 1978 titled How to Write Academic Dissertations.
SOCIETY
Agencies get new heads
Wang Chung-yi (汪忠一), a career veteran of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau (MJIB), has been appointed as the agency’s new director-general, replacing Wang Fu-lin (王福林), who is retiring, the Ministry of Justice said yesterday. Wang Chung-yi, who joined the bureau in 1979, most recently headed its Anti-Money Laundering Division after serving as the bureau’s International Affairs Division chief and as the head of a local investigation station. Wang Fu-lin and National Immigration Agency Director-General Hsieh Li-kung (謝立功) have been appointed members of the National Security Council, which advises the president on security issues. Replacing Hsieh as the head of the National Immigration Agency will be Mo Tien-hu (莫天虎), who is currently responsible for investigations into domestic security issues under the MJIB, the Ministry of the Interior said.
TRADE
German internship opens
Students interested in working for German companies with operations in Taiwan after they graduate can now apply to take part in an internship program, the first of its kind, the organizers said yesterday. “An internship can become a stepping stone to a career with a company,” said the German Academic Exchange Service and the German Trade Office, which have jointly launched the First Taiwan Internship Initiative, providing more than 20 internships offered by 15 German companies in Taiwan, a statement said. More information on the program is available at www.daad.org.tw/zh/26182/index.html.
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