■Labor
Rules eased on foreigners
Effective yesterday, foreign spouses who have received their Alien Resident Certificate need not apply for a work permit before starting work, the Council of Labor Affairs said. The relaxed measure was part of an amendment to the Employment Services Act (就業服務法), which was passed by the Legislative Yuan recently and promulgated by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on Tuesday. Also stipulated in the amendment was that public and private high schools through kindergartens can employ foreign nationals as language teachers. The amendment also relaxed restrictions on foreign blue-collar workers, allowing foreign laborers and household helpers whose visas have expired to re-enter the country after leaving for only one day -- before they were required to leave the country for 40 days before re-entering.The amendment also stipulated that each of the foreign laborers' work periods in Taiwan should not be longer than six years cumulatively, council officials said.
■ Legal system
Fugitive gets SARS reprieve
A Taiwanese fugitive wanted for drug crimes will get to enjoy an extra two weeks of freedom because he was quarantined for possible SARS infection after returning from Hong Kong. The man was convicted two years ago on drug offenses and sentenced to more than seven years in jail, but fled to China, police said. Upon returning to Taiwan, he was immediately identified as a fugitive and taken to the prosecutor's office in Chiayi. But because the man had come from a SARS-affected area, the prosecutor in charge had no choice but to send him home for a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
■ Diplomacy
Lu slams Beijing over SARS
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday blamed Chinese leaders for the worldwide spread of SARS. Speaking to the media after attending a seminar on the aftermath of SARS, Lu said SARS has caused panic around the world, and the danger that the disease could still spread is rising in Taipei. Chinese leaders should be held responsible for the crisis, she said, adding that Taiwan was an innocent victim in this situation. She said Beijing should be condemned by everyone for its senseless opposition to Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization as an observer.
■ WHO bid
Church backs Taiwan
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan pleaded with the World Alliance of Reformed Churches stationed in Geneva, Switzerland, to support and promote Taiwan's entry into the World Health Organization (WHO). The church said in a press release yesterday that even though, as a nation, Taiwan is excluded from the WHO, the government had dutifully and responsibly reported to the WHO and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the SARS situation from March 14, when the first suspected cases were detected here. But it was not until May 3 that two WHO specialists arrived in Taiwan to help the government evaluate and understand the epidemic. The church asked the alliance and its members to support Taiwan's WHO bid, saying the move would not only safeguard the rights of Taiwanese to WHO services but also improve the general health and well-being of all people.
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