■ Society
College cashier convicted
A junior-college cashier in Taipei embezzled NT$30 million (US$857,142) to buy expensive gifts for a married teacher she had fallen madly in love with, police said yesterday. The 32-year-old woman was given a 16-month jail term for embezzlement, which was suspended, officers said, since she had voluntarily turned herself in and agreed to return the money. Police said the object of the woman's affections knew nothing about the embezzlement and had no plans to divorce his wife. However, it is not clear if the man had returned all the expensive gifts the cashier had given him -- including a BMW -- or what his wife thought about the case.
■ Economy
Science parks get investors
The total number of investors in two science parks in southern Taiwan is expected to exceed 100 soon, as three enterprises have applied for permission to open operations at the Southern Science Park and the Lu Chu (路竹) Science Park. Southern Science Park administrator Tai Chien (戴謙) said yesterday that if the applications are approved today, the number of investors at the Southern Science Park will increase by two to 94 and the number at the Lu Chu Science Park will rise to eight. Tai declined to give any details of the investment plans. Instead, he said two universities -- National Cheng Kung University and Chung Cheng University -- have applied to establish research and development centers at the Southern Science Park, which was founded in 1996. Semiconductors and optoelectronics account for 98 percent of the output from the park.
■ Legislature
Election law change urged
Premier Yu Shyi-kun promised yesterday to push for sounder legislation that is more conducive for different political parties to field joint tickets in presidential elections. Since there is no law that prohibits two parties forming a joint ticket to run in a presidential race, Yu said that the Executive Yuan will try to submit an amendment to the Public Officials Election and Recall Law (公職人員選罷法) to the Legislative Yuan before the end of the month to facilitate legal implementation of issues related to presidential elections. Yu made the remarks during an interpellation session at the Legislative Yuan, after PFP Legislator Chen Chin-hsing (陳進興) asked him about the progress regarding an amendment pertaining to the next presidential election. Central Election Commission Chairman Huang Shih-cheng (黃石城) said the wording and content of electoral bulletins, registration of ballots and supervision of voting, need to be clarified by an amended law.
■ Gambling
Cabinet equivocates
The Executive Yuan maintains that the issue of casinos on outlying islands must be further studied before any action can be taken, a spokesman for the Executive Yuan said yesterday. Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) made the remarks one day after the Executive Yuan convened a meeting during which the Ministry of the Interior reported on a revised draft regarding the further development of the islands. The central issue, however, was whether or not to allow the opening of casinos on the islands. According to a poll conducted by the Ministry of the Interior in January, 53 percent of people nationwide are in favor of legalizing casinos, while 19 percent are against it. In comparison, 49 percent of residents of the outlying islands are in favor of casinos, while 28 percent are against the idea.
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