A huge crowd of Kaohsiung residents took part in the 2004 Terry Fox Run in the southern port city of Kaohsiung yesterday to raise funds for cancer research.
The non-competitive, recreational run was organized by Kaohsiung Medical University (KMU). Kaohsiung City Deputy Mayor Yao Kao-chiao (
PHOTO: YANG CHING-CHING, TAIPEI TIMES
Many foreign expatriates also participated in the run through the city's major thoroughfares to show their support for the cause.
KMU President Wang said the annual Terry Fox Run is an international fundraiser aimed at encouraging cancer research.
Noting that the KMU is carrying out many innovative cancer treatment research programs, Wang said financial support from the Terry Fox Foundation has contributed much to the university's research work and has benefited many cancer patients.
Taiwan began to sponsor the annual Terry Fox Run in 1995. This year, the event will be held in four cities around the island -- Kaohsiung, Taipei, Taichung and Hualien. The Taipei run is scheduled for Oct. 31.
The annual Terry Fox Run commemorates Terry Fox, a Canadian track and field athlete who had his right leg amputated in 1977 at the age of 18 due to bone cancer. He managed to run across Canada with a prosthetic leg to raise funds for cancer research before dying of the cancer in 1981.
Despite his death, Fox's courage, perseverance and love spread around the world through his cross-Canada run. Nowadays, 8,000 cities in more than 50 countries around the world hold the Terry Fox Run annually to commemorate him and raise funds for cancer research.
In related news, the first Chinese marathon will be held on the outlying island of Penghu Sunday, with more than 4,600 Chinese runners from around the world participating.
Penghu County government said that there will be three divisions: a 42.2km marathon, a 10km race and a 3km race.
All three groups will depart from downtown Makung. The marathoners will run to the Cross-Sea Bridge, the longest inter-island bridge in the Far East, and then return.
Participants include Taiwan runners Wu Wen-chien (
Penghu County Tourism Bureau head Lin Yao-cheng (
Chi Cheng (
Chi said that although the cash prizes for the winners of the races are not very big, it is the spirit of the event that matters and that in the future the purse could increase. The races are expected to be held each year from now on, she added.
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