■ Crime
Police hunt piglet thieves
More than 100 piglets were stolen from a farm in Hsinkang village, Chiayi County, early yesterday morning. According to preliminary police investigations, the thieves killed the farm's guard dog by poisoning it and then herded the pigs into a truck. The pigs were only a few weeks old. Each had a market value of about NT$2,000. Several farmers in the county have recently reported thefts of eels, ducks and geese.
■ Health
SARS discussed in the US
Department of Health Director-General Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) arrived in Washington on Wednesday to exchange views with American officials on how to prevent another outbreak of SARS and strengthen cooperation in improving public health. While in Washington, Chen will meet with officials from the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Agency for Health Care Quality and Research, the National Institute of Health, and other organizations, sources said.
■ Defense
Penghu wants to tax military
Penghu County Commissioner Lai Feng-wei (賴峰偉) yesterday said that the county government is planning to ask for "military training tax" from the local air force headquarters. According to Lai, the air force has been taking advantage of the county's isolated islands to carry out their regular bombing training for pilots over the past 30 years. Residents of Huayu, a small island about 8km from the military exercise zone, have been seriously affected by the military training because houses on the island crack and collapse, and windows regularly break due to the bombing exercises. Lai said that the exercises damage residents' properties and health.
■ Health
New test for SARS
Taiwanese researchers have developed a test that can diagnose SARS infections as early as the first two to three days after the onset of the virus, according to reports in the Chinese-language media yesterday. The test, developed by the National Taiwan University, works by detecting the SARS-associated coronavirus antigens in specimens collected from the patients, according to the reports. "The tests have displayed a high degree of accuracy," Chang Ming-fu (張明富), head of the university's Graduate Institute of Biochemistry and Molecularbiology, was quoted as saying. The new test can help identify SARS infection much earlier than existing methods, the reports said.
■ Legal system
Prosecutor resigns
Panchiao District Prosecutor Kuo Wei-chung (郭緯中) submitted his resignation yesterday to the Ministry of Justice. Kuo, his colleague Huang Chung-kang (黃重鋼) and Taipei Prosecutor Lu Chao-chang (呂朝章) were trailed by members of the ministry's "paparazzi team" team on Oct. 28 when they went out for drinks with two women at midnight. The ministry's Inspection Department decided the trio's behavior was "improper" since Kuo and Huang are married and proposed administrative punishments for them. Kuo was to be transferred to Changhua District Prosecutors' Office. According to Kuo's letter of resignation, he hoped to leave his current post on Dec. 1. The Government Officials Evaluation Committee, the highest administrative office to decide punishment for government officials, is also considering to suspend Kuo's admission to the bar.
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