SOCIETY
Office supplies rare stamps
Rare commemorative stamps and postmarks sold at the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) post office are highly sought after by philatelists in Taiwan. The islands host a patrol outpost with one post office, which serves 200 coast guard officers stationed there. The office’s services are limited to mail and the sale of stamps and souvenirs. The office is staffed by two volunteers, who handle about 70 pieces of mail per month, the Coast Guard Administration’s Dongsha Command said. Part of the volunteers’ work involves selling stamps and postmarks to collectors on Taiwan proper, the command said. The office was established in 1966 when a mail service was set up by the Marine Corps.
Photo: CNA
CRIME
Man caught with army gear
Vietnamese authorities on Sunday arrested a 31-year-old Taiwanese man on suspicion of smuggling military equipment. Local news Web site VnExpress.net reported that authorities at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport found abnormalities with the man’s luggage bound for Kaohsiung. Authorities found 79 pistol grips, two military communication devices, gas masks, shells for a M79 grenade launcher and cartridges for AR15 rifles, as well as old NATO military outfits and backpacks. The import and export of the items is prohibited, Vietnamese officials said. The authorities did not disclose the man’s name, the report said.
CRIME
Death urged for driver
The Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday called for the death penalty for a man who last month allegedly ran over his former wife and her lawyer in a car. On July 17, Hung Tang-hsing (洪當興), 44, allegedly ran over his former wife, Lee Yi-hui (李怡慧), and her divorce lawyer, Huang Cheng-hsiung (黃政雄), in front of a courthouse in Tainan. Huang was rushed to hospital, but was pronounced dead, while Lee died on July 19. Hung was charged with manslaughter. In the indictment issued by prosecutors yesterday, they recommended a death sentence, saying Hung showed no remorse for his crime. The Taiwan Bar Association and its local chapters, which represent most of nation’s lawyers, had at the time of the incident issued a joint statement condemning the violence and urging the judiciary to hand Hung a heavy sentence to protect all legal practitioners.
SOCIETY
Officer to be discharged
A military police officer who was attacked outside the Presidential Office Building last week is due to be released from hospital, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said yesterday. His doctors are to conduct one final check before releasing him, possibly in the next day or two, Huang said. Last week, the assailant, identified only by his surname, Lu (呂), attacked the officer stationed outside the west wing of the building with a Samurai sword. The officer was rushed to National Taiwan University Hospital for treatment. He was treated for a 10cm wound on the right side of his neck, earlier reports said. Lu has been turned over to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for further investigation.
ENTERTAINMENT
River festival Saturday
This year’s Taipei Sounds from the River Festival is gearing up for the Dadaocheng (大稻埕) Lovers’ Day (七夕情人節) celebration, with a list of live performances from top artists. The special, organized by the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism, is to take place on Saturday and is to feature Japanese singer Kousuke Atari, Malaysian singer-songwriter Joyce Chu (四葉草) and Taiwanese reggae band Matzka. In addition to live music, there will be a 10-minute fireworks show at 8:20pm, with 15,000 fireworks forming the shape of a bottle with the word “LOVE” inside. Officials urged attendees to use public transport as a large turnout is expected
DIPLOMACY
No talks after Panama split
Taiwan and Panama have not discussed establishing official representative offices since the severing of diplomatic relations in June, a Taiwanese official said on Thursday. Following the closure of the two nation’s respective embassies in Taipei and Panama City on July 12, no official channels of communication have been maintained, said Diego Chou (周麟), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs. Although Panama has expressed an interest in maintaining substantial ties and exchanging business offices with Taiwan, it remains to be seen if Beijing will pressure Panama to change its mind, Chou said. “We don’t think now is an appropriate time to discuss this matter,” he said. Asked if the Taiwan-Panama free-trade agreement is still valid after the ending of official ties, Chou said that the government believes it remains valid, as Panama has not formally expressed a desire to terminate the pact.
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