■ SHIPPING
Whirlpool behind sinking?
A Panama-registered ship may have sunk in a whirlpool last Tuesday, dragging down as many as 27 crew members within five minutes after the freighter was struck by a giant wave off the northern coast, the Coast Guard Administration said yesterday. The ship was carrying iron ore and an Indonesian crew of 28. One crew member was found alive, clinging to his life vest, on Wednesday. "A whirlpool effect is possible," a coast guard spokesman said after hearing the survivor's account. "Some of the sailors couldn't put on their lifejackets in time, so there are some who didn't make it up." Although the coast guard normally calls off searches within 72 hours, it has extended its hunt for the ship to a seventh day, using 12 boats and a helicopter.
■ WEATHER
Low temperatures forecast
Temperatures will fall today as the seasonal wind from the northeast gets stronger, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday. The bureau said a cold front is expected to arrive on Saturday. Forecaster Hsiao Chia-sen (蕭家森) said the weather in the north and northeastern regions started to become cool and humid yesterday. He said showers may occur in the north, northeast and the east of the nation. Temperatures are likely to rise tomorrow as the seasonal wind is likely to weaken, he said.
■ CROSS-STRAIT TIES
New Kinmen group planned
Civic activists on Kinmen will form an association to provide emergency disaster relief and first aid services across the Taiwan Strait, former Kinmen deputy commissioner Yen Ta-jen (顏達仁) said yesterday. He said the association was needed because of the growing amount of cross-strait boat travel between Kinmen and Xiamen in China. He said the group would provide assistance to people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Yen said the association would be established before the end of this month. Kinmen County Commissioner Lee Chu-feng (李柱烽) supports the group, he said. An initial meeting of the association was heldon Sunday at the Hongbo Ceramics Factory, he said. "As direct shipping services between Kinmen and Fujian have become more popular, civic groups need to establish an emergency disaster relief and medical service," he said, adding that he believes the government will ease its policy on cross-strait travel. The number of people traveling between the two sides of the Strait was expected to increase to between 1 million and 2 million per year, Lee said. The new group would work with the Kinmen County Red Cross Organization and the Kinmen-Matsu Cross-Strait Interaction Association to provide emergency services, he said.
■ RESEARCH
Healthy hosiery invented
Industrial Technology Research Institute staffers have invented stockings that can repel mosquitos and socks that reduce the chance of developing a fungal infection, the institute said yesterday. "The stockings release an odor that repels mosquitos, but human beings cannot notice the smell. So women get fewer mosquito bites," a researcher said. The key was adding mosquito repellent during the dyeing process, he said. The institute has also invented socks which can reduce the chance of developing "Hong Kong foot." "We add an anti-bacterial agent into the material of the socks ... during the dyeing process. The agent restrains the growth of mildew and bacteria," he said.
COLLABORATION: As TSMC is building an advanced wafer fab in Dresden, Germany, it needs to build a comprehensive supply chain in Europe, Joseph Wu said Taiwan is planning to team up with the Czech Republic to build a semiconductor cluster in the European country, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Friday. Wu, who led a Taiwanese delegation at the annual GLOBSEC Forum held in Prague from Friday to today, said in a news conference that Taiwan seeks to foster cooperation between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and its counterparts in Czechia. Such cooperation is expected to transform the country into one of the most important semiconductor clusters in Europe over the next three to five years, he added. As TSMC is building an advanced
A joint declaration by Pacific leaders was reissued yesterday morning with mentions of Taiwan removed after China slammed an earlier version as a “mistake” that “must be corrected.” After five days of talks in Tonga, a “cleared” communique was released on Friday that reaffirmed a 30-year-old agreement allowing Taiwan to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). However, the wording immediately raised the ire of Chinese diplomats, who piled pressure on Pacific leaders to amend the document. The forum reissued the communique without explanation yesterday morning, conspicuously deleting the paragraph concerning the bloc’s “relations with Taiwan.” “It must be a
A tropical depression in waters east of the Philippines could develop into a tropical storm as soon as today and bring rainfall as it approaches, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, while issuing heat warnings for 14 cities and counties. Weather model simulations show that there are still considerable differences in the path that the tropical depression is projected to take. It might pass through the Bashi Channel to the South China Sea or turn northeast and move toward the sea south of Japan, CWA forecaster Yeh Chih-chun (葉致均) said, adding that the uncertainty of its movement is still high,
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
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