NATIONAL DEFENSE
F-16Vs to be commissioned
The nation’s first F-16V combat wing is expected to be commissioned into the air force in November, a military source said yesterday. The air force launched a program in 2016 to retrofit all of its 141 F-16A/Bs into F-16Vs, which are equipped with more advanced avionics, including APG-83 Scalable Agile Beam Radar, a Helmet Mounted Cueing System, and other flight management and electronic warfare systems. A military source familiar with the matter said that the air force has already successfully upgraded at least 42 of the F-16A/Bs to F-16V standards. A commissioning ceremony for the newly upgraded F-16Vs was originally to be held at Chiayi Air Base in April, but a domestic COVID-19 outbreak forced the event to be postponed, the source said. The military has decided the ceremony would be held in November, the source added. After commissioning, the 42 F-16Vs would be listed as a combat wing under the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing based in Chiayi, the source said. The air force has previously said that the upgrading of all the F-16A/Bs would be completed by 2023. In addition to the retrofit program, Taiwan has also purchased 66 new F-16Vs from the US and delivery is expected to start in 2023. Those fighter jets would be deployed at the Taitung Air Base.
NATIONAL DEFENSE
Largest flag flyby planned
This year’s Double Ten National Day celebrations are to feature the largest ever national flag flyby, a military source said yesterday. Two CH-47 Chinook helicopters are to carry an 18m by 12m flag as they fly over the Presidential Office Building in Taipei during the main event, the source said. Previous national flags used in flybys measured 12m by 8m, the source added. Other than the two CH-47s, another 45 military aircraft would also fly past the Presidential Office Building on the morning of Oct. 10 to celebrate the nation’s 110th birthday. The 12 types of aircraft taking part in the aerial show include AH-64E, AH-1W and UH-60M helicopters, and F-16V and Mirage-2000 jets, the source said. Meanwhile, a parade displaying the nation’s major missile systems would showcase the armed forces’ ability to defend Taiwan, the source added. The troops set to take part in the celebrations have moved to a military base in Hsinchu to prepare, the source said.
ENVIRONMENT
Conservation act urged
Greenpeace on Monday called on the government to urgently draft an ocean conservation act to ensure marine ecosystems around the nation are better protected and preserved before it is too late. More than 422kg of ocean debris was collected from the waters of a conservation zone off Keelung during a Clean Up the World event on Sunday, Greenpeace said in a statement. Clean Up the World has about 35 million volunteers across 133 nations. It is a not-for-profit, non-governmental, apolitical event that unites communities with a common focus — to protect the environment, Greenpeace said. This year’s campaign was observed worldwide from Friday last week to Sunday. The cleanup in Keelung was between Bisha Fishing Port and National Taiwan Ocean University, and involved 56 volunteers, Greenpeace said, adding that the area is part of the Aquatic Plants and Animals Conservation Area. The government needs to draft an ocean conservation act to better manage marine conservation zones so that they do not become a dumping ground for litter, Greenpeace project director Chung Meng-hsun (鍾孟勳) said. Greenpeace said divers found litter ranging from discarded fishing nets to buoys and plastic bottles.
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