TRANSPORTATION
Lightning damages runway
Damage to the runway at Kaohsiung International Airport on Thursday might have been caused by a lightning strike, airport deputy director Sun I-chung (孫翼中) said yesterday, adding that the damage has been repaired and flights have resumed. From about 6pm to 9pm on Thursday, thunderstorms caused heavy rain and lightning strikes in Kaohsiung, which probably caused the damage to the runway, Sun said. A Far Eastern Air Transport flight reported the damage after landing at 6:45pm and airport staff subsequently discovered two holes in the runway that were estimated to be 5cm deep, he said. The airport was closed at 7:10pm for more than two hours after the damage was discovered, affecting 40 flights before operations partially resumed, he added. Repair work on the runway did not start until 3:30am the next day, because the runway surface was still wet, Sun said, adding that the repairs were completed at 4:30am and full operations resumed shortly afterward.
TRANSPORTATION
More take ‘three links’
The volume of passengers between the islands of Kinmen and Matsu via the “small three links” with China grew in the first half of the year, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Maritime Port Bureau said yesterday. The airports and harbors of Matsu’s Beigan (北竿) and Nangan (南竿) islands, as well as the transport facilities on Kinmen, are collectively referred to as Taiwan’s “small three links” with China. The number of passengers traveling from China’s Fujian Province to Kinmen and Matsu and vice versa in the first six months of the year totaled 910,000, up 36,000 from the same period last year, the bureau said. Last year, passenger volume between China and the two islands totaled 1.81 million visitors, a record number since the links were introduced in 2001.
ENTERTAINMENT
Cellist breaks wrist on trip
Cellist Chang Chen-chieh (張正傑) yesterday said he broke his wrist while vacationing in Vienna and is to undergo an operation at a local hospital soon. The accident occurred on Thursday when he ran into a pothole while cycling along the Danube River, breaking his left wrist, said 57-year-old Chang, who is in Vienna on summer vacation, adding that he is not sure whether the injury would affect his ability to play the cello, but a doctor told him his wrist would be in plaster for four weeks. “I really hope to play the cello again,” Chang said, adding that he is scheduled to hold a concert for fans with wheelchairs in Taiwan in September. “I’m keen to play for them, as it will be the seventh year in a row.”
DIPLOMACY
Kiribati envoy takes office
New Kiribati Ambassador Tessie Eria Lambourne yesterday presented her credentials to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) at the Presidential Office Building in Taipei. Hailing Lambourne as a long-time good friend of Taiwan, Tsai welcomed the envoy to her new post in Taiwan and expressed the hope that she will help deepen mutually beneficial ties in the fields of medical care, agriculture, clean energy, talent training and infrastructure. Taiwan and Kiribati have maintained diplomatic ties for 15 years and the two nations have engaged in more than 100 cooperative ventures. As Lambourne is concurrently serving as Kiribati’s ambassador to Japan and South Korea, Tsai said that this is an indication that the Pacific Island nation pays great significance to its relations with Taiwan.
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