■ Politics
KMT recruits Athens star
Taekwondo star Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄) would become a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator-at-large next year, it was revealed yesterday. Twenty-eight-year-old Huang has become a household name after he won a silver medal in taekwondo in this year's Olympic Games. Huang also has a master's degree. He had originally intended to pursue a PhD after the Olympic Games, but the party has managed to pursuade him to become a KMT legislator-at-large candidate. His family has supported the move. Huang would be placed within the "safe zone" on the candidate list so he would certainly become a legislator next year, a KMT source said. The party's central standing committee is slated to discuss and approve all the legislator-at-large candidates today.
■ Cross-strait
Activists appeal for peace
Taiwan and China must engage each other "here and now" and establish a way to effectively communicate to lay the groundwork for cross-strait peace, according to the spokespeople for a coalition of a dozen private and political activist groups in Taipei yesterday. In a joint appeal, the activists said pursuing a cross-strait arms race would end in a "lose-lose" situation for everyone. The activists called for Beijing to renounce its threats of force against Taiwan, and urged Taiwan's bickering politicians not to infect those in China with their constant invective. Chien Hsi-chieh, chairman of the Peacetime foundation of Taiwan, called for both sides to stop provoking each other and accelerate exchanges while seeking to resume the long-stalled official dialogue. Lee Tai-shiang (李泰祥), a noted musician and composer, called for Taiwan and China to increase exchanges in the arts, music and culture as a way to avoid confrontations.
■ Sports
Distance runs set for Penghu
The first Penghu World Chinese Distance Races will be held Oct. 3 and are expected to attract 4,500 Chinese runners from around the world, the Penghu County Government said yesterday. The events will begin in Makung. According to Penghu officials, 801 Chinese people have registered to take part in the 10km race, while some 3,800 people are registered to run in the 3km event. Several ace distance runners from China, including Bai Zengquan (白增全) and Zhang Shujing (張淑晶) from Jilin Province are expected to take part.
■ Media
TV licenses at risk
The Government Information Office (GIO) might not renew the operating licenses to China Television Company (CTV) and Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) on Friday if the companies are found to have violated the law. The agency agreed to renew the two-year licenses of CTV, Taiwan Television (TTV) and Chinese Television System (CTS) last Wednesday but threatened to revoke them should their shares be sold to foreign or Chinese investors. Through its party-run Hua-Hsia Investment Holding Co, the Chinese Nationalists Party (KMT) owns a 65 percent stake in CTV and a 10 percent stake in TTV. The Broadcasting and Television Law (廣電法) mandates that the KMT must sell its stakes in the two stations by Dec. 26. It also bans foreign or Chinese investors from owning, funding or assuming key positions in the media. On Monday, Hua-Hsia replaced two board members with people from Sycamore Ventures, which was part of the US-based Citibank Venture Capital, a subsidiary of Citicorp.
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