■ Society
Runners take to the streets
More than 5,000 people yesterday braved an early start and a speech from Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to take part in the capital's 9th Annual Terry Fox Run. The event raised more than NT$1.2 million for cancer research. Ma praised participants outside Taipei City Hall for making Taiwan the world's third-largest money raiser in an event held all over the globe before leading runners on the 6.5km course just after 8am. Participants could also opt for a shorter, 2.2km course that ended at the top of Renai Road. Ma, who often competes in charity athletic events around the country and is the chairman of the Terry Fox Run Foundation in Taiwan, finished the longer course in about 30 minutes.
■ Diplomacy
US reaffirms `one-China'
The US on Saturday reaffirmed its "one-China" policy ahead of the presidential elections next March, which it said would be "another milestone in Taiwan's remarkable democratic development." The US "supports free and fair elections in Taiwan," US Department of State spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement. "The United States does not favor one candidate or one party over another. We look forward to working with whomever the people of Taiwan elect as their next president and vice president. The traditional bonds of friendship between the people of the United States and the people of Taiwan remain as strong and vibrant as ever," the statement said. "Taiwan and its leaders can count on the United States to pursue a steady and constructive policy toward East Asia and the Taiwan Strait area. We will continue to adhere to our one-China policy," the statement said.
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