■ Politics
KMT ads tout `fresh start'
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) aired its first of two television campaign commercials yesterday, which are to promote the image that the party represents a fresh start for Taiwanese politics, balance and harmony in the government, and to show its resolve in representing the people. The 50-second commercial features KMT legislator-at-large candidate and Taekwondo star Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄), who won a silver Olympic medal this summer for Taiwan. In the ad, Huang is shown running through the Taiwanese countryside while being cheered on by local folk, with a voiceover expressing his gratitude and asking for the support of the Taiwanese people in the legislative elections. While the KMT originally planned to make four television commercials, it will most likely make just two due to financial difficulties, party spokesman Chang Jung-kung (張榮恭) said yesterday. The commercial will begin airing today until the legislative elections on Dec. 11 on all three terrestrial television channels and cable channel CTI TV.
■ Security
Minister finishes Hawaii trip
Minister of the Interior Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全) yesterday completed his attendance at the 2004 Asia-Pacific Homeland Security Summit and Exposition held in Hawaii. The three-day summit ended yesterday. Su had departed for Hawaii on Monday afternoon, but kept his visit under wraps for fear of opposition from China. During the trip, Su met Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle to exchange ideas about finding a balance between tourism and preventing terrorism. Su also offered his congratulations on the re-election of US President George W. Bush. With Pingtung County and Hawaii's Maui County being sister counties, Su said at the summit that Taiwan should learn from Hawaii's success in promoting tourism.
■ Policy
Visa rules relaxed for China
The government moved to relax regulations capping the annual number of Chinese nationals authorized to make business trips to Taiwan, as well as the duration of stay, Cabinet spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said yesterday. The number of Chinese businesspeople authorized to visit Taiwan each year under the new regulations is expected to be 10 times the current figure of 140,000 visits per year. Chen said that regulations stipulating that only Taiwanese companies investing over NT$3 million in China could extend invita-tions to Chinese business representatives has been scrapped completely. The new regulations also relax limitations on the job functions of visiting busi-nesspeople. According to records provided by the Mainland Affairs Council, about 1,500 visits to Taiwan are currently authorized each month. Only about 70 percent of those authorized actually visit Taiwan.
■ Litigation
KMT slander suit dismissed
The Taipei District Court on Tuesday dismissed the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) slander lawsuit against radio personality and senior journalist Chou Yu-kou (周玉寇). The KMT had filed the suit after she allegedly said that the KMT had paid its supporters to participate in the protest in front of the Presidential Office on March 27. The court dismissed the case against Chou on the grounds that the statement was made by someone she was interviewing, National Chungshan University Professor Chang Hsi-mo (張錫模). The KMT had said that the party would definitely appeal.
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