MILITARY
Mirage 2000 search continues
The military yesterday said it would continue to search for a Mirage 2000 fighter piloted by Captain Ho Tzu-yu (何子雨) that went missing during a training flight in November last year. Air Force Deputy Commander Lieutenant General Chang Yen-ting (張延廷) said the military would not give up hope of finding Ho, who lost contact with a control tower on Nov. 7 at 6:43pm about 60 nautical miles (111km) north of Pengjia Islet (彭佳嶼). Ho is part of the Hsinchu-based 499th Tactical Fighter Wing and went missing during a regular nighttime training exercise. The military has only been able to identify where the jet lost contact, but has found neither Ho nor his aircraft. The military is to help Ho’s family hold ceremonies to wish him good luck, Chang said, in response to Ho’s wife two days ago writing on her Facebook page that it has been six months since her husband went missing. Regardless, she remains hopeful, as nothing has been found yet, she wrote.
WORKFORCE
Fewer rules for foreign artists
A new rule that no longer requires foreign entertainers to get formal approval from venues where they intend to perform took effect on Friday, the Ministry of Labor said. Amendments to the qualifications and criteria for foreign nationals undertaking jobs specified under Article 46.1.1 to 46.1.6 of the Employment Service Act (就業服務法) included removing restrictions on foreign nationals hired to engage in the arts and performing arts in Taiwan, making it easier for them to put on a show. Employers previously had to obtain documents from the public agency with jurisdiction over the performance venue where the foreign national wanted to perform, which gave the entertainer approval to perform at the venue, the Workforce Development Agency said.
WEATHER
Quake jolts eastern Taiwan
A magnitude 4.7 earthquake yesterday jolted eastern Taiwan at 12:17pm, the Central Weather Bureau said. No casualties or damage were immediately reported. The epicenter of the earthquake was at sea about 19.3km southeast of Hualien County Hall at a depth of 43.7km, the bureau’s Seismology Center said. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Hualien’s coastal Jici (磯崎) area, where it measured 3 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The earthquake could also be felt in other parts of Taiwan, with intensity levels of 1 and 2.
CRIME
Taiwanese detained in Sydney
Two Taiwanese were earlier this week arrested in Australia in connection with a haul of 200kg of crystal methamphetamine, which has a street value of more than US$130 million, Australian media reported. The shipment of the illegal drug, commonly known as “ice,” is believed to have arrived in Sydney from Malaysia on a container ship on April 21 disguised as tea and concealed inside metal machinery, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The two men, aged 22 and 29, were on Wednesday arrested along with a 22-year-old Chinese near a warehouse in southwest Sydney, when they were trying to dismantle the apparatus, the newspaper said. All three men, believed to have traveled to Australia for the sole purpose of receiving and distributing the drug shipment, have been charged with attempting to possess a commercial quantity of unlawfully imported border-controlled drugs, it 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
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