■ Crime
Fung to be subpoenaed
The Shihlin District Prosecutors' Office yesterday said that prosecutors would subpoena former New Party legislator Elmer Fung (馮滬祥) today regarding his involvement in the alleged sexual assault of his former Filipina housekeeper. According to the summons, Fung is supposed to report to Prosecutor Bai Chung-chih (白忠志) at 10am today. Shihlin District Prosecutors' Office Spokesman Wang Jen-kuei (王壬貴) said that Bai mailed the summons to Fung last week. Wang also said Bai would consider a polygraph test on Fung if necessary. Wang said that Bai belongs to a prosecutors' office special task force. The task force is in charge of handling all sexual-assault cases that concern women and children. The victim, who has been identified by only her first name, Rose, has gone back to the Philippines. Wang said, however, that prosecutors have her testimony. Wang would not confirm what Rose said or how prosecutors had managed to speak to her.
■ Politics
KMT, PFP release ads
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-People First Party (PFP) alliance yesterday released three television commercials and two newspaper advertisements criticizing President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and attempting to persuade voters not to support the referendums. One television advertisement accuses Chen of transforming the Presidential Office into a "corruption center." One imitating an e-bay commercial accuses Chen of dragging down Taiwan's economy and creating unemployment. The ad says KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) would improve people's lives. Two newspaper advertisements produced by the alliance's campaign headquarters in Taoyuan urged young people not to vote in the referendums and also promoted Lien's military-service reform.
■ Politics
Workers blast candidates
Hundreds of workers took to the streets yesterday to call on voters to spoil their ballot papers in this week's presidential election because of the poor quality of the candidates. The demonstrators said voters should stamp the faces of both presidential rivals after complaining that their campaigns had refused to address unfair taxes, unemployment and a growing suicide rate. The group, the Action Committee for Labor Legislation, dumped hundreds of rotten apples, symbolizing bad politicians, outside the offices of the Central Election Commission (CEC). "Voters should not cast their ballots for the candidates of either camp," a protest organizer told reporters. The demonstrators called on the CEC, responsible for the fair running of the poll, to include "none of them" as an option for voters.
■ Politics
Police guard temple
Some 250 police officers were called in to guard a Buddhist temple yesterday amid a backlash against Buddhist Master Wei Chueh (惟覺), who openly backed the opposition in the presidential election next week. More than 100 supporters of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) gathered yesterday to wave banners and shout "Chen get elected" outside the master's Chung Tai Temple complex (中台禪寺) in Nantou County. The protest was sparked by comments from Wei Chueh, one of Taiwan's four Buddhist masters, who broke with tradition last week to support a candidate before voters head to polls on Saturday.
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