SOCIETY
Chiang Pin-kung in hospital
Former Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) was hospitalized on Saturday evening at Mackay Memorial Hospital after collapsing at dinner at a Regent Taipei restaurant. The Chinese-language Apple Daily said Chang was rushed to the hospital, which is just up the street from the hotel, at about 8:30pm. Chiang regained consciousness after being taken to the hospital, but remains in intensive care. As of press time last night, Mackay refused to provide any information on Chang, citing patient’s privacy. Chiang, 85, a former minister of economic affairs and deputy legislative speaker, became head of the Straits Economic & Cultural Interchange Association after leaving the SEF.
WATER
Supply cuts for Kaohsiung
Supplies to some areas of Kaohsiung will be suspended for 46 hours starting at 2am on Wednesday to allow for maintenance of pipelines and water treatment plants, Taiwan Water Corp said on Saturday. The areas include Zuoying (左營), Ciaotou (橋頭), Zihguan (梓官), Mituo (彌陀), Dashe (大社), Nanzih (楠梓) and Renwu (仁武) districts, as well as part of Gushan (鼓山) and Niaosong (鳥松) districts, the state-owned utility said. About 98,770 households in those areas will be affected, it said, urging residents store water ahead of the cutoffs.
SOCIETY
Indonesian migrant honored
Minister of the Interior Minister Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) yesterday honored Indonesian Muksin, a migrant fisher whose fundraising helped establish An-Nur Tongkang Mosque (東港清真寺) this year, the first mosque in Pingtung County. At celebrations in Taichung to mark International Migrants Day, Hsu paid tribute to Muksin, who has been employed on Donggang Township (東港)-based boats since 1999. Muksin wanted to establish a mosque in Donggang for his compatriots who are based there, Hsu said. The number of foreign spouses nationwide has surpassed 540,000, with Chinese accounting for about 66 percent, while those from Southeast Asian nations total more than 150,000, he said. “We are extremely thankful for these new immigrants who have joined us to become Taiwanese,” Hsu said. “They are bringing new energy and rejuvenating the country.”
EARTHQUAKE
South rocked by temblor
A magnitude 4.1 quake jolted Yunlin County at 0:07am yesterday, the Central Weather Bureau said. The quake was centered 21.2km east-southeast of Gukeng Township (古坑) and hit at a depth of 14.6km, it said. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Gukeng, where it measured 4 on Taiwan’s seven-tier scale. An intensity of 3 was recorded in several central and southern areas, including Sinyi (信義) and Mingjian (名間) townships in Nantou County, Yulin’s Douliou Township (斗六), Chiayi County’s Fanlu Township (番路), Chiayi City and Changhua.
WEATHER
Cold weather on the way
A strong wave of cold air from the north is forecast to arrive tomorrow night, sending the mercury in northern Taiwan down to 15°C on Wednesday, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The cold air mass is likely to blanket the northern part of Taiwan until Saturday, forecaster Hsu Chung-yi (徐仲毅) said. The weather should start to warm up on Friday, before another cold front arrives on Sunday, he 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