CRIME
Suspect released on bail
A suspect in two Tainan shooting incidents was yesterday released on NT$700,000 (US$22,985) bail, after his arrest and detention on March 24. The suspect, Wang Wen-tsung (王文宗), was ordered to stay within his home and is restricted from leaving the country for eight months. Prosecutors have appealed the decision. A Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member and Tainan’s Cihji Temple (慈濟宮) chairman, Wang is listed as a suspect in two shooting incidents during campaign events before the nine-in-one elections in November last year. Both incidents were at Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-linked sites in the city’s Syuejia District (學甲). Wang faces charges related to harboring criminals, possessing illegal firearms and other offenses related to the shootings, prosecutors said.
Aviation
New Japan route launched
StarLux, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, yesterday launched a new route between Taoyuan and Sendai, its sixth destination in Japan. Passengers taking the maiden fight departing from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport were given free commemorative tote bags and Sendai’s signature edamame smoothies, the airline said. The Airbus A321neo flights would operate daily, departing from Taoyuan at 11:40am and arriving in Sendai at 4pm local time, with return services departing at 5:20pm local time and landing at 8:10pm. StarLux flies to Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Sapporo and Okinawa in Japan, as well as 10 other Asian destinations in Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. On April 26, the carrier is expected to launch direct flights to Los Angeles, its first destination outside of Asia.
Weather
Sun expected over holiday
Sunny to partly cloudy weather is expected across Taiwan today through Wednesday, during most of the Tomb Sweeping Day long weekend, the Central Weather Bureau said. A weakening weather front, which moved in from southern China on Thursday, brought rain to most areas of Taiwan yesterday, the first day of the five-day weekend, which marks Children’s Day on Tuesday and Tomb Sweeping Day on Wednesday. Daytime temperatures today would range from 17oC to 21oC in northern Taiwan and 23oC to 25oC in central and southern areas, the bureau said. Mostly sunny weather, with some cloudy skies is expected, and brief rain showers could fall in mountainous areas, it said. Another weather front is forecast to arrive late on Wednesday, bringing showers to northern and eastern regions and the mountainous areas of central Taiwan, it said.
Telecoms
One undersea cable fixed
One of two severed undersea Internet cables connecting Taiwan proper with the Matsu Islands has been restored, Chunghwa Telecom Co said on Friday. The two undersea cables managed by Chunghwa, the largest integrated telecom service provider in Taiwan, were cut by passing vessels on Feb. 2 and Feb. 8 respectively. One of the cables was restored at 4:50pm on Friday, the company said. The restoration enabled the resumption of Internet services in Matsu, it added. Efforts are being made to restore the other severed cable as soon as possible, it said. In the meantime, the company would do its utmost to increase the capacity of a backup microwave transmission system to boost the resilience of telecom services in Matsu, it added.
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