■ Direct links
Poll reveals support
More than 50 percent of Taiwanese are eager to open direct links with China, but are worried about the security threat they may pose, according to a poll released yesterday. The survey by TVBS cable news was conducted this week, as the government prepares to release a plan for air links with China by the end of the month. According to the poll, 51 percent of Taiwanese support the opening of direct flights to China, and 30 percent are opposed to the move. The other 19 percent didn't have an opinion. Although the poll showed strong support for the opening of flights, 52 percent of those questioned said they were also worried about the security risks of such a move. Forty percent weren't worried and the rest didn't have an opinion.
■ Health insurance
Dead debtor found
The cash-strapped Bureau of National Health Insurance has not let up in its efforts to chase down a woman for payment of overdue health insurance premiums, local news media said yesterday. But the bureau's perseverance was fruitless as the debtor has been dead for more than five years, the Central News Agency said. For five years and six months, the bureau has sent its monthly bill to policy holder Chang Chin, despite the fact that she died in 1997 at the age of 81. Her son-in-law said he had informed the bureau about her death many times, but the bureau continued to send the dead policyholder a bill every month, with the overdue amount now totalling NT$39,864 (US$1,140).
■ Oral Sex
Man says he's innocent
A married man who was sued for adultery recently pleaded his innocence though he admitted that he had frequent sexual contact with his female colleague, a local newspaper said yesterday. His plea came a day after the Taiwan High Court reached a decision on Monday that the crime of adultery could only be prosecuted in cases involving sexual intercourse. Citing the decision, the man, identified by his family name Lee, told prosecutors he was wrongly sued because he had never had sexual intercourse with his girlfriend, though they had engaged in active sexual play for eight months, the paper said. Lee's angry wife, who had sued the pair for adultery, cried foul, but in the face of the High Court decision, the prosecutors could do nothing, the paper said.
■ Education
Cross-strait plan discussed
The Ministry of Education will sponsor a two-day seminar at Nanhua University in Chiayi today and tomorrow to lay out the ministry's policy on cross-strait academic and cultural exchanges, a ministry spokesman said yesterday. The spokesman said that over the past several years, an ad hoc Chinese affairs group under the ministry has sponsored a series of such seminars for university and college administrators. Cabinet officials in charge of Chinese affairs will present the latest information on government policies and guidelines, as well as measures relating to cross-strait exchanges, the spokesman said. Statistics released by the Mainland Affairs Council indicate that exchanges between academic and cultural establishments on both sides of the Strait have become more frequent in the past decade. As of the end of September, the government had approved nearly 70,000 applications from China for visits to Taiwan for academic or cultural activities.
Agencies
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
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
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