■ Shooting probe
Committee denied funding
Director of the Directorate General of Budget Accounting and Statistics Hsu Chang-yao (許璋瑤) yesterday said that his office would not agree to allow the investigative committee probing the March 19 assassination attempt to use the Cabinet's Secondary Preparatory Fund to cover its expenses. Hsu said that his office would not allow access to the fund even if the Council of Grand Justices ruled the committee to be valid in terms of of the Constitution. Hsu said he based his decision on uncertainty about where the committee fitted into the government structure, and the fact that the committee does not have an official head or an accounting department to regulate the committee's finances.
■ Society
Man jumps into lions' pit
An apparently mentally-deranged man jumped into the lions' pit at the Taipei Zoo yesterday to "talk" to the lions. He was rescued with only a minor bite on his foot. Chen Chung-ho (陳中和), 46, leapt into the pit at about 11am and walked toward a pair of sleeping lions, waving his jacket and talking to the big cats. Zoo officials said lions charged at the man twice and one bit his right foot, but the injury was not serious. Zoo visitors alerted security guards, who arrived promptly with veterinarians, who used water cannons to separate the lions from Chen. They fired two anaesthetic shots at the animals, which put them to sleep, allowing Chen to walk free through the gate. Chen was sent to hospital for treatment and psychiatric examination. He had been in the lion's pit for nearly an hour.
■ Education
Overseas studies promoted
Under a government program to send elite students abroad for advanced study, the first group of such students could be heading overseas to top-notch universities and research institutes early next year, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said yesterday. Education Minister Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) said the program will cover students in three major areas -- basic sciences, humanities and social sciences, and key technology fields. Students can receive scholarships of US$30,000 per year. Those studying humanities or social sciences can receive scholarships for three years, while those studying natural sciences are encouraged to apply for scholarships at their schools during the second year of study, he said. Tu said that his ministry, the National Science Council (NSC) and the Council for Economic Planning and Development will jointly put forward NT$450 million (US$13.43 million) for the program. The MOE and the NSC will jointly use two-thirds of the budget to select students for advanced studies overseas, while colleges and the universities will use the remaining one-third to select students for priority subjects.
■ Crime
Drugs disguised as candy
A Vietnamese woman has been arrested for attempting to smuggle a batch of heroin coated with sugar and disguised as candies into Taiwan, police said yesterday. Nguyen Thi Tuyen, 24, who is married to a Taiwanese national residing in Taitung County, was arrested upon arrival at CKS Airport from Ho Chi Minh City late Tuesday night, police said. Hundreds of sugarcoated heroin pills with a total weight of about 410 grams were found in her luggage, police said. Taitung police said they had reacted to a tip-off. The drugs worth more than NT$8 million (US$23,900) were cut into 200 small pieces, wrapped in candy papers and mixed with real chocolates in two jars, they 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