SOCIETY
Gas leak hospitalizes 14
Three people were in a critical condition following a carbon dioxide leak at an onshore construction site for an offshore wind farm in Changhua County yesterday morning that resulted in 14 people being hospitalized. The leak occurred as workers were filling 200 cylinders with carbon dioxide, the Changhua County Fire Bureau said. First responders found three workers who were experiencing cardiac arrest in the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park (彰濱工業區), the bureau said. Doctors resuscitated a man surnamed Chien (簡), whose heart had stopped beating, the Tungs’ Taichung MetroHarbor Hospital said. A man surnamed Wang (王) with lacerations on his head was hospitalized, while a man surnamed Pan (潘), who was comatose when he arrived at hospital, had regained consciousness and was being treated for inhalation of unknown substances, a hospital spokesperson said. Changhua County Fire Bureau personnel said it was about 10am when they received a report about the incident at the construction site, where workers were erecting a voltage reduction station.
Photo courtesy of Red Bull
MEDIA
Chunghwa boss faces claims
Chunghwa Telecom Co chairman Kuo Shui-yi (郭水義) was yesterday accused of special breach of trust for allegedly paying more than NT$400 million (US$12.5 million) to help ELTA TV cover a NT$500 million fee to obtain exclusive rights to broadcast the Paris Olympics in Taiwan. ELTA secured the rights after also receiving NT$80 million from the Sports Administration, meaning it paid only NT$20 million for the rights, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Yang Chih-tou (楊植斗) said, while filing a complaint against Kuo with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office for contravening the Securities and Exchange Act (證券交易法). Before the Olympics started, ELTA also collected NT$18 million in fees from Taiwan Public Television Service and Chinese Television System to broadcast the Games and provide footage to domestic news channels, Yang said. He said he believed that Kuo acted in contravention of his duties with the intention of benefiting himself or a third party, causing Chunghwa Telecom to engage in unlawful transactions that were inconsistent with its business practices, and resulting in the telecom incurring significant economic losses.
SPORTS
B-Boy makes major final
Breakdancer Sun Chen (孫振), also known as B-Boy Quake, has become the first Taiwanese to reach the final of The Notorious IBE, a major hip-hop dance gathering in the Netherlands. Quake lost to Colombian B-Boy Alvin in the men’s solo final in Heerlen on Sunday, capping off his historic run at the three-day breaking competition. It was “the stage I watched since I was little,” he wrote on Instagram after the final battle. Sun had outdanced Alvin 2-0 in the pre-qualifiers for an Olympic Qualifier series in Budapest in June. The B-Boy from Hsinchu has solidified his reputation as a trailblazer for Taiwanese breakdancers by appearing this year’s Games, which hosted breaking for the first time in Olympic history. He failed to advance to the quarter-finals in Paris, but in the Netherlands demonstrated how he had taken his moves to the next level in just one week. Sun also competed in the five vs five crew battle as a member of City4Crew, but they were ousted in the quarter-finals. He is next to compete at Outbreak Europe in Slovakia and the World Battle in Portugal.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
RSS