■ Education
School celebrates 100 years
The nation's first elementary school for Aboriginals will turn 100 in a few days. A ceremony is scheduled to be held at Tah Pang Elementary School near Alishan in Chiayi County on Thursday to celebrate the 100th birthday of the school established by the Japanese in 1905 to provide education to children of the Taiwanese timber workers who felled high-valued Taiwan teak to be shipped to Japan. Most of the school was destroyed by an earthquake in 1989 and new buildings were added until 1991, according to principal Pu Chung-yung (浦忠勇). The school runs six classes in six elementary school levels for 108 students. More than 90 percent of the students are children of the Tsou tribe, one of the smallest Aboriginal tribes.
■ Society
Koo's health failing
Wife of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) yesterday confirmed that the 87-year-old Koo's recent health was not in good shape. "I hope God will bless Koo and that he will recover his health soon." said Koo's wife Cecilia Koo (辜嚴倬雲). Fu Chen-chung (符振中), deputy head of the Cheng Hsin Medical Center (振興醫院) where Koo Chen-fu had checked in on Monday, declined to comment when asked about speculation that Koo Chen-fu's health is in grave condition. The SEF stated that Koo Chen-fu remains conscious and aware, and the Koo family is thankful of the public's concerns. Koo Chen-fu has suffered from kidney and cardiovascular problems. He underwent kidney and heart surgery and now only has one kidney.
■ Environment
New center to lead ant fight
A national center for the prevention and eradication of red fire ants will be formally inaugurated today to coordinate efforts to wipe out the insect, according an official from the Council of Agriculture yesterday. The center will be headed by Yang Ping-Shih (楊平世), a professor at National Taiwan University, with help from five univer-sities. Agriculture council Vice Chairman Hu Fu-hsiung(胡富雄) said the center will monitor the spread of the ants, teach farmers how to effectively get rid of them and keep the government informed of the situation. Color codes will be set up to show the seriousness of the ant problem in a particular location -- with red indicating the ants have been discovered but no action has been taken; yellow indicating that ants are currently being exterminated; and green indicating that the ants have been eliminated.
■ Government
New group to probe waste
Vowing to focus public attention on national spending, a group of academics formed a social group yesterday to examine the causes of government waste. "Mistaken policy is worse than corruption. `White gold' [legitimate national funds] can be even worse than `black gold' [illegally-obtained money]," said People's Alliance for Recovering Stolen National Wealth co-founder and National Central University professor Chu Yun-peng (朱雲鵬) yesterday. While the group, which includes members such as poet and social activist Chan Che (詹澈) and film director Hou Hsiao-hsien (侯孝賢), claims not to be politically affiliated, it has strong connections with anti-administration figures such as independent Legislator Sisy Chen (陳文茜). The group yesterday announced its initial efforts will be on researching ten cases of mishandled government spending, such as losses incurred when the government pulled the plug on plans for a fourth nuclear power plant in 2000.
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