SOCIETY
Tang chief urges unity
Tang Prize Foundation chief executive officer Chern Jenn-chuan (陳振川), who is visiting Hong Kong, on Friday said that major award organizers in Taiwan and Hong Kong could work together to improve relations. Organizers for Taiwan’s Tang Prize and Hong Kong’s Shaw Prize Foundation, could cooperate for the betterment of society, Chern said, adding that his foundation could share its experience in promoting international educational collaboration with its Hong Kong counterparts. Chern said he hopes to seeing more cultural exchanges between Taiwan and Hong Kong, adding that the two share the same writing system and a similar understanding of Chinese culture. The Tang Prize awards, founded by Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin (尹衍樑), honor people who have made significant contributions to sustainable development, biopharmaceutical science, sinology and law. The Shaw Prize, established in 2002 under the auspices of entertainment mogul Run Run Shaw (邵逸夫), awards three prizes annually for contributions to astronomy, life science and medicine and mathematical sciences.
AVIATION
Drone grounds flights
A drone on Friday briefly suspended operations at Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) said. Air traffic controllers received a report from a Uni Air plane at about 1:43pm that an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) had been spotted 1.8km from the plane as it was approaching the airport, it said. The aircraft was about 5.5km from the airport, it said, adding that to ensure safety, the airport suspended all flights and reported the case to police. The airport did not resume normal operations until 2:31pm, delaying eight flights, the agency said. UAVs are banned within a 5km radius of airports and are not allowed to fly higher than 60m in non-restricted areas, the agency said.
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Taiwanese held in Malaysia
A Taiwanese who escaped prosecution in Indonesia for telecom fraud was last week accused of a similar crime in Malaysia, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said. The 33-year-old man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), was arrested with 24 other suspects in a joint operation by Malaysia and the bureau. The suspected fraud ring is comprised of five Taiwanese and 20 Chinese and was allegedly run out of a private residence in Selangor, Malaysia. During the raid on the home, authorities found gateways, laptops, cellphones and other telecommunications equipment. The devices were seized by the police. Tsai, who was arrested by Indonesian police in 2015, escaped to Malaysia while still under investigation, the bureau said.
AVIATION
Emirates offers showers
Emirates airline yesterday said that one of its most well-known features — on board showers — would be made available to first-class passengers on the Taipei-Dubai route from Oct. 1. The carrier said it is planning to replace its 2-class A380 aircraft on the route with 3-class A380s, and the shower facilities would be available to first-class passengers, which has a seating capacity of 14. Passengers would be required to request use of the shower on booking, the airline said, adding that each person is allocated between 20 and 30 minutes in the facility, with five minutes of water supply. The 6m2 bathroom, which includes a shower, toilet, washbasin and hair dryer, features a marble and hickory design, the carrier 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