NATIONAL DEFENSE
Navy buys anti-ship system
The navy has signed a contract to acquire three indigenous short-range anti-ship systems produced by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the military said yesterday. The NT$286 million arms package is scheduled to be delivered by December 2022, it said. The automated defense system is available in two configurations — fixed-position for land use and a ship-based version. The system is armed with two 20mm guns, with ammunition boxes mounted on each side of the turret, the institute said. The short-range defense weapons system is integrated with optical imagery identification, target tracking and accurate servo motors to ensure rapid and precise firepower, it said.
TOURISM
Chinese ban partially lifted
Beijing’s ban on individual Chinese travelers visiting three offshore counties was lifted yesterday, the Kinmen County Government said. Beijing on Aug. 1 banned individual tourists from 47 Chinese cities traveling to Taiwan, citing deteriorating cross-strait relations. It was the first time Beijing had banned independent travelers from visiting Taiwan since the visits started in June 2011. Previously, residents of 47 major Chinese cities were able to visit Taiwan as independent travelers, while others who wished to visit had to apply through selected travel agencies. Following more than a month of negotiations, Kinmen, Penghu and Lienchiang counties have convinced Beijing to lift the ban on their counties beginning this week. Applications for individual travel for people from 20 cities in four major Chinese provinces — Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Guangdong — were being accepted as of yesterday.
ENTERTAINMENT
Horror movie released
Psychological horror film Detention (返校), which was adapted from a video game of the same name, was to be screened in more than 100 movie theaters nationwide starting yesterday. The movie is set during the White Terror era and was developed from a game by Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games, according to 1 Production Film Co. With a budget of about NT$95 million (US$3.07 million), the movie follows two high-school students who enter a realm of vengeful spirits in an empty school while they search for a teacher who has disappeared. Director John Hsu (徐漢強) said on Facebook that as a gamer himself, he wanted to keep the spirit of the movie true to the game, but at the same time to develop his own vision and emotion to create a unique psychological thriller. A fan meet-and-greet is to be held at ShowTimes Cinema’s Taichung theater today.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
Female officer promoted
The Coast Guard Administration this week appointed Hsu Li-chuan (徐麗娟) as deputy commander of the investigative group at its Kinmen-Matsu-Kaohsiung Branch, the first female to take up the position since the branch was founded 20 years ago. Hsu graduated with a master’s degree in international politics from National Chung Hsing University before entering the service as a patrol officer, the agency said. Hsu, who started work in Kinmen two months ago, said the hospitality, friendliness and good nature of the residents reminds her of her hometown, Yunlin County’s Dounan (斗南). “I look forward to carrying out the coast guard’s core mission to combat crime and prevent disease in the Kinmen region,” she said. The contribution of female officers has gained recognition throughout the service over the years, and women now make up 20 percent of personnel, the agency 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