EARTHQUAKES
Rescue team back from NZ
An urban search and rescue team returned yesterday after wrapping up a mission in New Zealand in the aftermath of a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that devastated the city of Christchurch on Tuesday. The 22-member team, which was assembled by the National Fire Agency, said they had followed Wellington’s instructions and searched 350 buildings in 21 districts, but did not find anyone trapped in the rubble or locate any dead bodies. The team members said their experience in New Zealand could be of help in undertaking future earthquake relief operations at home. A female Taiwanese student was among a number of foreign nationals who were reportedly trapped under the collapsed Canterbury TV building. So far, she has not been located.
HEALTH
Presbyopia a concern: poll
Middle-aged people are more worried about developing early presbyopia, or failing eyesight, than growing gray hair or developing wrinkles, a recent survey showed. Thirty percent of respondents — outpatients aged 35 to 54 who visited a local hospital for consultation on their deteriorating vision — said they experienced anxiety, depression, headaches and insomnia when their eyesight began to fail. Many expressed concern that wearing glasses would affect their appearance and make them look older, said Tom Yang (楊聰財), a psychiatrist at Cardinal Tien Hospital, which released the survey of 200 respondents. Some simply refused to wear glasses and 50 percent of the respondents said they also gave up reading, Yang said. Many ophthalmology outpatients also consulted psychiatrists as they were oversensitive about their health and very worried about showing the symptoms of premature aging, Yang said.
CULTURE
Bands warm up for Megaport
Two warm-up concerts for Kaohsiung’s biggest music festival, featuring dozens of underground bands, rocked fans both in the north and south of the country yesterday. The prelude shows to the Megaport Music Festival took place at Taipei’s Wall Live House and at the Wall Pier 2 in Kaohsiung. A total of 42 independent bands or artists from home and abroad, including British band 65daysofstatic and MUCC from Japan, will perform at the two-day festival that begins today. Wu Bai (伍佰) and China Blue are scheduled to perform in the final session tomorrow to close the event.
HEALTH
Donations pour in
A flood of donations has poured into various funds for people who cannot pay their National Health Insurance premiums, in the wake of last month’s charity auction by former Department of Health minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良), said Lai Li-wen (賴立文), a senior specialist at the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI). From Feb. 13 to Feb. 19 — the week after Yaung’s briefcase was auctioned for NT$5 million (US$168,900) — the funds received 71 donations totaling NT$886,000, Lai said. The amount was seven times the weekly average of NT$110,000 recorded in January, Lai said. Before leaving office last month, Yaung put his five-year-old briefcase up for a charity auction on the Taiwan Yahoo Web site, where it was snapped up by Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘). Yaung donated all the proceeds from the sale, plus an additional NT$500,000 out of his own pocket, to the funds set up by the BNHI to help the disadvantaged pay their health insurance premiums.
SPORTS
Kevin Lin to run Silk Road
Kevin Lin (林義傑), a renowned Taiwanese ultra-marathon runner, announced that he would begin a “Running the Silk Road” adventure next month with the aim of increasing public awareness of the shortage of water resources. Lin said he and three colleagues would start the challenge in Istanbul, Turkey, late next month and finish in Xian in China’s Shaanxi Province in mid-September. “Running the Silk Road” will be a non-profit event with proceeds going to non-governmental organizations that help alleviate water shortages in communities along the old Silk Road. Lin ran through the Sahara Desert in 2007 for a similar cause. Lin will team up with Bai Bin (白斌) and Chen Jun (陳軍) from China, and Jodi Bloomer of Canada, to run the 10,000km, 150-day route that will pass through Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan — places that Lin said are all facing acute water shortages. It will be the first time that Chinese and Taiwanese athletes are jointly involved in such an endeavor.
ENTERTAINMENT
Sirena Huang to perform
Noted Taiwanese-American violinist Sirena Huang will give a violin recital on Tuesday at the National Concert Hall in Taipei. Huang, 16, has won several top prizes in several international competitions, most recently first prize in the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 2009. She currently studies under Stephen Clapp and Sylvia Rosenberg at the Juilliard School in New York. Huang has been selected three times since 2003 as the youngest of 10 Exceptional Young Artists worldwide at the Starling-DeLay Symposium for Violin Study at Juilliard and has performed for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the Dalai Lama and former Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel.
ENTERTAINMENT
Yang launches new firm
Taiwanese entertainment guru Yang Teng-kui (楊登魁) launched a new production company yesterday to help revive the Taiwanese film industry. The company, Polyface Entertainment Media, plans to invest NT$3 billion (US$102 million) to produce films and television dramas; the largest investment in film and television entertainment in recent history. His firm is already scheduled to produce films with several directors who said that their cooperation will be long term. The company also has a branch office in Shanghai.
Hong Kong-based American singer-songwriter Khalil Fong (方大同) has passed away at the age of 41, Fong’s record label confirmed yesterday. “With unwavering optimism in the face of a relentless illness for five years, Khalil Fong gently and gracefully bid farewell to this world on the morning of February 21, 2025, stepping into the next realm of existence to carry forward his purpose and dreams,” Fu Music wrote on the company’s official Facebook page. “The music and graphic novels he gifted to the world remain an eternal testament to his luminous spirit, a timeless treasure for generations to come,” it said. Although Fong’s
China’s military buildup in the southern portion of the first island chain poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, a defense analyst warned. Writing in a bulletin on the National Defense and Security Research’s Web site on Thursday, Huang Tsung-ting (黃宗鼎) said that China might choke off Taiwan’s energy supply without it. Beginning last year, China entrenched its position in the southern region of the first island chain, often with Russia’s active support, he said. In May of the same year, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) force consisting of a Type 054A destroyer, Type 055 destroyer,
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
Taiwan is planning to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based X-ray imaging to customs clearance points over the next four years to curb the smuggling of contraband, a Customs Administration official said. The official on condition of anonymity said the plan would cover meat products, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, large bundles of banknotes and certain agricultural produce. Taiwan began using AI image recognition systems in July 2021. This year, generative AI — a subset of AI which uses generative models to produce data — would be used to train AI models to produce realistic X-ray images of contraband, the official
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