The official Web site of the Asian Taekwondo Union (ATU) was hacked yesterday, one day after the union posted a controversial article accusing Taiwanese gold medal hopeful Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) of cheating in a taekwondo match at the Asian Games in China.
The hacker left messages on the site saying “we all Taiwanese,” “shame on you,” and demanding that the ATU “give our gold medal back.”
There was also a digitally created- image showing a middle finger pointing upward between the national flags of the People’s Republic of China and South Korea, amid accusations that China and South Korea were behind the decision to disqualify Yang.
In an apparent attempt to show the “truth” behind the controversy, in which Yang was disqualified over sensors in her footwear, the hacker also uploaded a video showing Yang removing two sensors before the start of the fight on Wednesday.
The ATU released a statement on its Web site on Thursday accusing Yang of a “shocking act of deception,” and saying that she had attached two extra sensors to her footwear to increase her chances of winning.
Yang has insisted the sensors were within the rules and that she had no intention of manipulating or cheating in the match.
The ATU Web site’s homepage yesterday bore a message in Korean saying it was temporarily down -“because of excessive traffic,” while an ATU official said: “Our Web site remains paralyzed today for unknown reasons.”
Asked to comment on the ATU’s statement, World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) secretary-general Yang Jin-suk said at a press conference in Guangzhou yesterday that he could not speak for the ATU because it is a separate organization from the WTF.
However, the South Korean official said it was “inappropriate” for the ATU to issue such a statement.
He also expressed disapproval of the Web hacking incident.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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