CRIME
Chinese boat, crew detained
Authorities have detained a Chinese fishing vessel and its crew for poaching in Taiwan’s exclusive economic waters, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The Minping (閩平) fishing boat carrying 14 crew, including its captain, was caught trespassing and operating illegally 43 nautical miles (80km) west of the Port of Taichung by a coast guard patrol vessel at 2:12pm on Sunday, the CGA said. The boat ignored orders to stop for inspection and attempted to flee, but was intercepted, it said. Coast guard officers boarded the ship and an inspection found 3 tonnes of fish that were later tossed into the sea. The vessel has been impounded at the Port of Taichung and its crew detained by the CGA, which said the case would be handled in accordance with the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例).
CRIME
Man held for pre-rally threat
A 39-year-old man is being investigated after getting onto Taipei mayoral candidate Chen Shih-chung’s (陳時中) campaign vehicle with a knife and trying to hurt himself before a rally for Chen in the capital, police said on Sunday. The man, surnamed Liu (劉), climbed onto the empty vehicle, took a microphone and tried to speak at 1pm, about 30 minutes before the Democratic Progressive Party candidate’s rally began, the Taipei Police Department said. Liu also tried to hurt himself with the knife while talking, but was soon pepper-sprayed and overpowered by six police officers, the department said. Liu appeared to be mentally unstable, police said, adding that he was hoping to gain attention regarding his “solutions” to US-China issues. Liu is being held and investigated for possession of hazardous items without justifiable reasons, police said.
TOURISM
Miaoli to open railway park
A NT$1 billion (US$31.2 million) railway park in Miaoli County is to open next year, the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) said on Sunday. Work on an exhibition room and leisure area consisting of restaurants and souvenir shops would be finished by the end of this year, the TRA said. Work on the main attractions of the 19,140m2 park, next to the Miaoli Railway Station, would be finished next year and would include art installations, a museum and a display of more than 10 diesel and electric locomotives, it said. The agency said it hoped the park could one day be as popular as the Railway Museum in Japan’s Saitama Prefecture and spark interest in Taiwan’s railway history and local tourism.
TRAVEL
Tigerair adds Da Nang route
Tigerair Taiwan yesterday said it would launch a route between Taoyuan and Da Nang in central Vietnam on Dec. 24 as part of its efforts to boost its presence in Southeast Asian. The launch of the Taoyuan-Da Nang route marks the carrier’s first foray into the fast-growing Vietnamese market, Tigerair Taiwan said in a statement. It would start by offering round-trip flights every Wednesday and Saturday, it said. Bookings for a special untaxed ticket costing NT$1,299 for a single trip on the route would open at 10am today until 11:59pm tomorrow, for departures between Dec. 24 and March 25, it said. An untaxed NT$1,599 ticket for a one-way trip between Taoyuan and Don Mueang International Airport (Bangkok), and NT$1,099 for a one-way tickets from Taoyuan to Palawan or Boracay in the Philippines are also being offered, it said.
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