■ Education
Policy issues discussed
The National Teacher's Association (全國教師會) and three other educational groups will today discuss educational policy issues with representatives of the two presidential candidates, the Democratic Progressive Party's Legislator Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) and Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱). The debate focusing on the topics of educational reform and new policies between the two presidential candidates will be held on Sunday, Feb.29.
■ Economy
Re-election to give boost
President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) re-election would boost the country's economy, Wu Rong-i (吳榮義), president of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, said yesterday. In an interview with CNA, the economic adviser to Chen said the country's economy has been in a strong upturn from the beginning this year and is expected to grow by 5.27 percent if the government's NT$500 billion (US$15.06 billion) budget for the 10 new major construction projects is approved by the Legislative Yuan later this year. The growth rate will further expand should Chen win another four years in office, because Chen will keep his current policy unchanged and keep the momentum for growth uninterrupted, Wu said. A new government would inevitably re-examine the current policy and such a situation would be unfavorable to the current upward trends, Wu said.
■ Infrastructure
Jen Lien Bridge opened
The Jen Lien Bridge (仁連橋) across a steep valley of Mt. Tuli in the southern county of Chiayi was inaugurated and officially opened to public traffic yesterday, marking the 306th bridge that the renowned Chiayi Philanthropy Group has built around Taiwan. Volunteers of the Chiayi Philanthropy Group (CPG) -- founded by philanthropist Ho Ming-teh (何明德) -- spent three months and about NT$1.8 million (US$55,900) to build the 35m steel-wire bridge connecting the Chuchi rural township and Mt. Tuli, a scenic attraction but hard to reach without a bridge. According to Liu Ning-ching (劉寧欽), an abbot of a temple in Chuchi, the bridge was built in three months and is 2.5m wide. The single arch cable bridge has been overwhelmingly welcomed by mountain climbers who would otherwise walk nearly 10 hours to reach Mt. Dooli.
■ Election
Chen urges people to vote
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday urged his countrymen to be sure to vote in the country's first national referendum on March 20, saying that not doing so would be tantamount to handing a victory to mainland China. Speaking to a group of his supporters in Taipei City, the president called on the people to show their resentment towards Beijing's military threat against Taiwan, claiming that the number of Beijing's missiles targeting Taiwan increases at the rate of one every six days. He criticized his only rival in the presidential race, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰), as "selfish" by branding the referendum illegal and vowing in Saturday's presidential debate that he would not participate in the referendum voting. Chen said Lien has set a bad example for the country by taking the law into his own hands and determining on his own that the referendum is illegal.
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