■ Politics
VCD actor backs pan-blue
An actor who starred in the Special Report VCDs released last October that mocked Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), yesterday announced that he will vote for the pan-blue ticket and apologized for taking part in the satirical production. Peng Han-yang (彭瀚洋) told reporters at a news conference held by the pan-blue camp that he felt sorry for playing a role that he did not identify with. Peng said his performance was "a bad example" to society and stressed that he had not expected the VCDs to generate such a huge controversy. Peng also said he will vote for Lien and Soong because he believed they could bring a better life to the people of Taiwan, including an actor like himself.
■ Election
Foreigners to observe poll
More than 40 US academics and experts on East Asia affairs are expected to come to Taiwan to observe Saturday's election. Tang Ben, director of the Asian Studies Center of American Claremont Institute said the observers are all either professors or experts from think tanks. They include Stanley Rosen, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, and Richard Baum, the director of the Center for Chinese Studies at UCLA. Some of the observers have been invited by the government or civic groups. Rosen, who left for Taipei Monday night, said this will be the third time he will observe an election in Taiwan. He was here for the 1991 legislative elections and the 2001 Kaohsiung mayoral election.
■ Politics
Chang sues fugitive tycoon
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chang Ching-fang (張清芳) filed a libel lawsuit against fugitive Tuntex chief Chen Yu-hao (陳由豪) yesterday over Chen's accusations that he had meddled in the bidding for a construction project. Chang said starting that March 1, the fugitive tycoon has made contradictory accusations to tarnish his reputation but failed to produce solid evidence that he had broken the law. On Monday, Chen held a press conference in the US, accusing Chang of sending his assistant to apply pressure on Tung Ting Gas Corp in order to gain from the Tatan thermal power plant project in Taoyuan. Chen also played a tape he claimed was a recording of a conversation between Chang's aide and Tung Ting's president. Chang said the authenticity of the voices on the tape could not be proved and he demanded Chen desist in making unfounded allegations.
■ Election
CEC gives voter numbers
More than 16.5 million people are eligible to vote in this Saturday's election, the Central Election Commission announced yesterday. The exact number of eligible voters stands at 16,507,179, according to the commission's newly released election gazette. The number of people eligible to vote in the referendum is 16,497,746. The commission said the difference between the two numbers is due to the fact that overseas Taiwanese who have registered for the election but do not have legal residence in Taiwan cannot vote in the referendum. Taipei County has the largest number of eligible voters: 2,685,778, while Taipei City has 1,981,562 and Kaohsiung has 1,117,380. Other large constituencies include Taoyuan County with 1,273,026 eligible voters, Taichung County with 1,070,877, Changhua County with 947,526, Kaohsiung County with 919,717, Tainan County with 826,288 and Pingtung County with 669,646.
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