■ Charity
Malawi orphanage begun
The Fo Guang Shan International Organization is building an orphanage and care center in Malawi. The Amito-Fo Care Center being constructed by the Nan Hua Temple in South Africa -- the headquarters of Fo Guang Shan in Africa and the largest Buddhist temple in the southern hemisphere -- will also include a health care center exclusively for AIDS patients, said Lin Rui-hsiang, a Fo Guang Shan volunteer. The first-stage development of the orphanage, located in Lilongwe, Malawi's capital, is scheduled to be completed in November at a cost of US$1.4 million.
■ Labor
Ground broken for memorial
Officials broke ground yesterday for a memorial for six workers who died constructing the world's tallest building -- the Taipei 101 skyscraper. Five of the workers were killed in March 2002 when an earthquake jolted the building, sending two cranes, steel beams and chunks of cement crashing to the ground. Two were crane operators and the other three were construction workers. "The sixth worker being memorialized was an electrician who was electrocuted while installing wiring," said Huang Hsiao-jun, a spokeswoman for the Taiwan Association for Victims of Occupational Injuries.
■ Politics
DPP official slams pan-blues
A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) official said yesterday that it is shameful that supporters of the pan blue camp have extended their domestic political battle abroad, as it will seriously harm the nation's image. Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), the DPP's deputy director of communications, was referring to alleged verbal insults by pan-blue camp supporters against Presidential Office Secretary-General Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) at Washington's Dulles Airport on Tuesday as he concluded a two-day visit to the US capital. Chiou remained calm in the face of the demonstrators, who were protesting against what they are calling an "unfair" election, and the election-eve shooting of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮). Chiou received a letter of protest from the demonstrators but did not accept a national flag proffered by them.
■ Politics
Alliance fears DPP `tyranny'
A group of academics and media figures yesterday said it would form a "public action alliance" to counter what it called the government's populist manipulation of democratization. The petition was launched by media commentator Nan Fang-shuo (南方朔), Academia Sinica research fellow Lee Ming-huei (李明輝), National Taiwan University psychology professor Huang Kuang-kuo (黃光國) and acclaimed film director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢). The group called on the public to revive the spirit of the May 4th Movement, a 1919 campaign in China that extolled the spirit of science and democracy. The petition said that an era of "populist totalitarian politics is nigh" and urged the people to join the alliance and monitor the Democratic Progressive Party. However, other academics yesterday expressed concern about the purpose of the petition. Academia Sinica sociologist Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) said the petition should explain its objectives more carefully, including its support for "one China" and cross-strait dialogue. "Without a clear explanation, we are afraid this activity is likely to degenerate into a dispute over unification or independence," Hsu said.
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