AID
More donations for Thailand
The government has donated US$1 million to Thailand to help with the country’s flood relief efforts, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said on Tuesday, adding that the government made the decision after hearing a report by Chung Chien (鍾堅), a National Security Council councilor who had visited Taiwanese businesspeople in the kingdom. The donation will be on top of a US$100,000 contribution made last month in the wake of the country’s worst flooding in 50 years. The Thai-Taiwan Business Association and other expatriate groups in Thailand have raised NT$11.2 million that will be donated to help with its relief and rescue efforts. Thailand has also received more than NT$1.62 million from Taiwanese and Thai nationals living in Taiwan, the Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei said on Monday.
SOCIETY
Final push for Yushan vote
Yushan National Park Headquarters urged the public to step up voting for Yushan as one of the world’s “New 7 Wonders of Nature” before the contest ends tomorrow. Yushan needs a massive number of votes to avoid elimination, park headquarters officials said. Yushan is among the 28 finalists in the four-stage contest that began three years ago. The mountain — the highest peak in the nation and in East Asia — has been gaining votes slowly, according to the competition Web site. The current top 10 finalists in alphabetical order are the Dead Sea in Israel, the Grand Canyon in the US, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Halong Bay in Vietnam, Jeita Grotto in Lebanon, Jeju Island in South Korea, Indonesia’s Komodo island, the PP Underground River in the Philippines, the Sundarbans in India and Bangladesh and Vesuvius in Italy. Votes for Yushan can be cast at http://n7w.ysnp.gov.tw or www.new7wonders.com. Cellphone users can send a text message to 55123, saying “yushan.”
HEALTH
Free hepatitis checks offered
A hepatitis-screening program will be provided to the public free of charge on Saturday at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, the Liver Disease Prevention and Treatment Research Foundation announced yesterday. The program will be held on the anniversary of Republic of China founding father Sun Yat-sen’s (孫逸仙) birth in 1866. Sun died of liver disease on March 12, 1925. Sheu Jin-chuan (許金川), a doctor specializing in hepatitis, said public awareness about liver disease needed to be enhanced. “Only one-third of the 3 million hepatitis B carriers in Taiwan, for example, know about their health condition, leaving 2 million at risk of developing more serious complications,” he said, adding that regular screening was necessary to prevent late-stage diagnosis and promote early-stage detection. The program is free for all Taiwanese above the age of 26.
TRAVEL
Luggage hurts CAL plane
The passengers on a China Airlines (CAL) flight, including two Cabinet ministers, were evacuated yesterday after the plane was rammed by a luggage van on the tarmac at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Passengers were boarding the aircraft when the truck ran into it. The pilot ordered passengers to evacuate and the airline deployed another aircraft for the flight to Hawaii. Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) and Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德), who were heading for APEC meetings in Hawaii, were among the 275 passengers. The flight eventually departed at 4pm, 90 minutes behind schedule.
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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