■ Politics
Lawmaker convicted of libel
The Taipei District Court yesterday found People First Party (PFP) Legislator Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁) guilty of libeling a government official and sentenced him to 30 days detention or a fine of NT$27,000. In March, Fu called then Government Information Office director general Arthur Iap (葉國興) "a dog unleashed by [President] Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to bite people." He made the remark in a press conference as he criticized Iap over a translation error in a Central News Agency's report which implicated PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) in the Lafayette frigate scandal. The court ruled that, since Fu made the statement in the PFP's press conference room in the legislature, he was not protected by legislators' immunity of speech privilege. Fu said he will appeal the verdict.
■ Education
Book drive launched
BenQ Corp and China Airlines, along with other local companies, are sponsoring a drive to collect English-language children's books for schools in remote areas. They are urging expatriates and Taiwanese to donate books before Dec. 31. Books can be sent to the offices of the United Daily News at 555 Chunghsiao E. Road or branches of the Taipei Fifi Bookstore in Taipei, Yilan, Taoyuan, Taichung and Kaohsiung.
■ Crime
Police crack `rape pill' ring
Police raided an apartment in a high-rise building in Kaohsiung on Wednesday night, seizing 18kg of Ketamine and arresting five individuals. A police officer said that, according to preliminary investigations, two of the suspects manufactured Ketamine, a sedative drug known as "rape pills," in the apartment for two of the other suspects to sell in pubs. The materials they used to manufacture the drug were allegedly supplied by the fifth suspect. The officer said evidence shows that the suspects have sold an unknown quantity of the drug.
■ Education
Vocational schools backed
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) promised yesterday that his administration will not phase out vocational high schools. He said students should have a wider range of options in the nation's diversified and pluralistic society. Chen made the remarks at the opening of a two-day national conference in Taichung for the heads of vocational high schools. Chen said the government will devote more energy and resources to develop vocational education facilities instead of abolishing them. The government should build a good environment in which children and youth should be provided with more options and channels to develop their interests, potential and dispositions, he said.
■ Language
Chen urges diversity
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that the establishment of official languages should be based on the respect for differences among ethnic groups and cultures, and should transcend stereotypes and political ideologies. He made the remarks in an essay on his Web site on the beauty and diversity of Taiwan's languages. Chen said he speaks Hakka and Aboriginal languages on occasion and even though he is far from fluent, it helps to "bridge the gap between him and his audiences." He said there are 29 languages spoken in Taiwan, including Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), Mandarin, Hakka and more than a dozen Aboriginal languages.
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