FOREIGN AFFAIRS
CGA rejects Hanoi claim
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) on Monday rejected Hanoi’s claim that its vessels illegally dispersed a Vietnamese fishing boat by firing a water cannon at it earlier this month, saying it was within its rights to take action. The agency said that two of its cutters spotted two Vietnamese fishing boats operating about 4km southeast of Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) — the largest island controlled by Taiwan in the disputed South China Sea — at 8:30am on Jan. 6. The coast guard first broadcast warnings advising the boats to leave the area, but the orders were ignored and one of the fishing boats tried to ram a CGA vessel, forcing it to deploy its water cannon, the CGA said. Coast guard officers stationed on Itu Aba only act against intruding ships if they enter a 6km exclusion zone, the agency said. Photographs published by the agency showed that the Vietnamese boats had sailed to within 4km of the island. The coast guard vessel followed the law and did not fire the water cannon at an inappropriate location as claimed by Vietnamese media, the agency added.
WEATHER
Falling tiles injure two
The cold weather over the past three days has taken its toll not only on Taipei residents, but also on the city’s buildings, with tiles falling off exterior walls of structures in 35 incidents since Saturday, injuring two people. The cold spell was a dramatic change in weather that challenged some buildings, said Hung Te-hao (洪德豪), a spokesman for Taipei’s Construction Management Office. Yesterday, 13 cases of falling tiles were reported, bringing the total since Saturday to 35, he said. That is a far higher total than fewer than five reported on average per week, he said. The owners of buildings whose exterior tiles fell off and injured people will be fined between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000, he said. In cases where tiles fell off but no one was injured, the owners of the buildings will have to make improvements within one month or face similar fines, he said.
DIPLOMACY
Pope congratulates Tsai
Pope Francis congratulated president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and vice president-elect Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) on their victory in the Jan. 16 election, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The pope conveyed his congratulations to Tsai and Chen during a meeting with Ambassador to the Holy See Matthew Lee (李世明), Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) said. During the meeting, the pope made special mention of Chen, who is member of two Roman Catholic orders — the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St Gregory the Great and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem — Lin said.
HEALTH
Burns treatment commended
A medical team from Johns Hopkins University in the US on Monday commended Taiwan for its treatment of the many people burned in the fire at a New Taipei City water park last year. Johns Hopkins Regional Burns Center director Stephen Milner, who leads the team, has been visiting burn rehabilitation centers in Taipei and New Taipei City since his arrival in the nation last week. The team of US doctors has been discussing with their Taiwanese counterparts the treatment and rehabilitation of the hundreds of burns patients. Milner, who first visited the nation in July last year to offer advice on the treatment of the patients, said the US has no similar experience dealing with large numbers of burns patients.
JUSTICE
Bali fire compensation sought
The National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) on Monday said it has demanded compensation of more than NT$400 million (US$11.85 million) from the organizer and venue provider of a party in New Taipei City at which a fiery explosion injured 499 people, of whom 15 have died. The sum is intended to cover the medical costs of those affected, many of whom were badly burned. The Shilin District Court is expected to hear the case soon. The blast occurred at the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) water park in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里) on June 27 last year when colored cornstarch powder used for party effects burst into flames, engulfing partygoers in fire.
CRIME
‘Cold case’ arrest made
Police on Sunday arrested a man nearly 19 years after he allegedly stabbed to death a woman in Taipei’s Jingmei (景美) area and robbed her of NT$60,000 before fleeing, police said on Monday. The arrest was based on a single fingerprint of the man, surnamed Rao (饒), left in a pool of blood at the computer store the woman was minding for her husband on the evening of April 8, 1997, police said. Officers knocked on Rao’s door in New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊) at about 8pm on Sunday, police said. When Rao answered the door, he was asked: “Have you been sleeping well over the past 19 years?” police said. They said Rao confessed to the killing, which occurred when he was 16 years old. He was detained on suspicion of robbery and homicide and handed over to prosecutors. Police said they were able to identify the suspect because of technological improvements in comparing fingerprints. Credit should go to the investigators, who kept a complete file on the case, including the fingerprint and other evidence, police 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