■ Society
Lien heads to New York
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) left for New York yesterday to attend a memorial service for the late Soong Mayling (宋美齡), who died at the age of 105 on Oct. 23. Prior to his departure, Lien said that he will pay his respects to Soong, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek, during the memorial service slated for Nov. 5 at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manhattan and deliver a speech in remembrance of her outstanding contributions to the nation. In addition to being a devout Christian, Soong was also a wise, brave and benevolent woman, Lien said. Lien said that he will also present a KMT flag to the Chiang family.
■ Crime
Reward offered for Chu news
The National Police Administration (NPA) will offer a reward for any information leading to the arrest of Chu An-hsiung (朱安雄), fugitive former speaker of the Kaohsiung City Council, Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) said yesterday. Yu said the exact amount will be decided in the next two days. Yu made the remarks while he was fielding questions in the Legislative Yuan about the whereabouts of Chu. The disgraced former speaker was sentenced to 22 months imprisonment on Sept. 25 for buying votes during council elections in Kaohsiung last December. He had been ordered to report to the prosecutor to begin serving his term on Oct. 16, but failed to show up. He later reportedly emerged in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province in southeastern China after sneaking out of Taiwan. Yu said law enforcement agents are still verifying recent reports that Chu had appeared in Australia, although he said that "according to various clues, Chu should still be in Taiwan."
■ Education
Hero calendar unveiled
A unique calendar depicting Taiwanese luminaries was unveiled to the public yesterday by the Union of Taiwanese Teachers (UTT) in Taipei. The calendar marks the memorial days of important Taiwanese figures, such as the first doctor, Lai Ho (賴和), writer Yang Kui (楊逵), artist Chen Chen-po (陳澄波), democratic pioneer Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) and others. Some events that affected Taiwan's history, such as the 228 Incident, Kaohsiung Incident and 921 Earthquake, are also included. The oil paintings printed on the calendar are by artist Chen Lai-shing (陳來興). Taiwan Solidarity Union legislative leader Chien Lin Whei-jun (錢林慧君) said the calendar increased Taiwan's self-identity. UTT director-general Wang Shou-kuo (王壽國) said the calendar deepened Taiwanese consciousness from the aspect of education.
■ Literature
Yearbooks completed
The Council for Cultural Affairs yesterday published the 2001 and 2002 Taiwan Literature yearbooks (台灣文學年鑑). The two books were compiled by the Chinese Literature Department of Providence University and records the literature activities and events of the past two years chronologically, which will benefit the researchers. The Taiwan Literature Almanac puts literary events into three sections -- overview, profile and publication. Following the opening of the National Museum of Taiwanese Literature in Tainan last month, the museum will take over the compilation of the yearbook in the future, according to council official Huang Wu-chung (黃武忠).
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