■ Society
Cabinet OKs sports lotteries
The Cabinet decided yesterday to initiate a sports lottery in response to President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) request on Monday for such a lottery. The Cabinet decided that a sports lottery would not cut into the profits of the national charity lotteries. The National Council for Physical Fitness and Sports is scheduled to hold a public hearing within a month to solicit opinions from sports groups, academics and social groups. Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the government would first issue regular sports lotteries for professional baseball and basketball. If those are well received, Lin said, then special sports lotteries, covering such activities as horse racing and dog racing, could be offered.
■ Education
New foundation established
During its establishment ceremony yesterday, the Foundation of Life Development announced its goal of opening a life development school in Chi-lung sometime next year. The education system doesn't focus on meaningful and integrated living, said the foundation's founder, Idea Chu (朱魯青). To make up for this, he said, the foundation hopes to set up an institute of four colleges in which over 100 teachers and speakers will share their experiences and help students plot their own. The idea is for the institute to offer courses on subjects ranging from health education to financial management to help students develop the confidence they will need to face life. The foundation is looking for teachers to join its institute. More information about the foundation can be obtained by calling Chang Chin-fen (張靜芬) at 02-271-85299.
■ Diplomacy
US sending group for May 20
The US is organizing a high-level delegation to attend President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) inauguration for a second term on May 20, a senior Bush administration official said on Wednesday. "It should be a high level delegation in our view. But we haven't put it together yet," said the official, who preferred to remain anonymous. "The delegation should reflect the importance of our friendship with Taiwan and the accomplishment represented in this democratic election where the rule of law prevailed," the official explained. While the Bush administration issued a congratulatory message recognizing Chen's victory, the official said, the message also acknowledged that the pan-blue alliance candidate is contesting the election results and that judicial proceedings are underway. "There were street protests and they were quiet. They went down because it's been worked out through the rule of law. It's been worked through in the right way. So this is an accomplishment for democracy, for the rule of law," the official said.
■ Crime
Minister targets fraudsters
Minister of the Interior Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) said yesterday that he was confident the government's all-out drive to clamp down on fraud rings would reduce the number of scams being perpetrated in the country. Pointing out that the government had worked out a set of inter-ministerial mechanisms to work in concert with the National Police Administration, Su expressed confidence that scams, usually mounted by fraud rings via the Internet, telephones and cellphones, would be wiped out. The interior minister said that many of his friends and relatives had been approached by fraudsters and he vowed to stamp down hard on those who prey on the gullibility of others.
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