WEATHER
Mercury hits season low
A continental cold front and radiative cooling effects early yesterday sent temperatures in low-lying areas to their lowest this season, Central Weather Bureau data showed. The overnight low, recorded in Hsinchu County’s Baoshan Township (寶山) at 3:30am, was 7.9°C, the lowest of any low-lying area of Taiwan this season, while temperatures fell below 9°C in many other plains areas. Temperatures fell to 8.1°C in Ermei Township (峨眉), 8.2°C in Hualien County’s Guangfu Township (光復), and 8.4°C to 8.7°C in Miaoli, Yunlin and Taitung counties, the data showed. Although the cold front weakened yesterday, the bureau still issued a low-temperature warning of 10°C for this morning for Hsinchu, Miaoli, Yunlin, Nantou and Hualien counties.
SOCIETY
Book on uprising published
The Control Yuan has published a book about the Taiyuan Incident, an anti-government movement that involved political prisoners and prison guards at Taitung’s Taiyuan Prison, as well as young Aborigines sympathetic to their cause, Control Yuan member Wang Mei-yu (王美玉) said yesterday. The incident occurred on Feb. 8, 1970, when six political prisoners incarcerated at the prison tried to launch an armed revolution to take over the facility and to begin a campaign to achieve Taiwanese independence. The incident was deemed a failed uprising against the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime after the six were caught trying to bayonet a prison officer. Five of them were executed two months later, while Cheng Cheng-cheng (鄭正成) was sentenced to 15 years in prison, Wang said. Noting that the rebels have been deliberately erased from the nation’s history, Wang said that as the files on the incident have been made secret, people with differing political stances have their own interpretations of it. Therefore, the Control Yuan published a compilation of its investigative reports on the incident on the eve of Human Rights Day today, Wang said. According to the book, the prisoners have not been identified and it is not known whether they were revolutionaries, rebels or prison breakers. Their motivations are not known either, as all related files and documents have been concealed, it says. The establishment of justice involves the revelation of the truth, the book says. Saying “no truth, no reconciliation,” Wang called on the government to make political files available for public inspection.
SPORTS
Swimmer wins US silver
Wang Kuan-hung (王冠閎) on Saturday became the first Taiwanese to win a medal at the US Open Swimming Championships when he finished second in the men’s 200m butterfly. Wang, 17, a student from Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo High School, clocked 1 minute, 55.82 seconds to take the silver medal. The gold medal was won by American Luca Urlando in a record 1:55.60, while Jonathan Gomez of Colombia took bronze with a time of 1:56.90. Although Wang failed to break his personal best of 1:55.72, the result was better than expected, his coach Huang Chih-yung (黃智勇) said. The teenager had already qualified for next year’s Tokyo Olympics when he clocked 1:56.48 in the 200m butterfly at the FINA World Junior Swimming Championships in August. He would now head to Canada to undergo training, followed by the US, and Japan or Hong Kong, Huang said.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
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