■ Politics
PFP to contend for post
The People First Party (PFP) announced for the first time yesterday that it would contend for a deputy legislative speaker post. The announcement cast a shadow on the previous belief that both the legislative and deputy legislative speakers will remain Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members. PFP caucus whip Liu Wen-hsiung (劉文雄) said that caucus members would act uniformly in the speakership race, and that the caucus would cooperate with parties and figures supporting the ROC and opposing independence. The decision was made after PFP chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) returned to Taiwan yesterday and met party lawmakers, according to some reports. So far, three PFP lawmakers, Shen Chih-hwei (沈智慧), Chou Hsi-wei(周錫瑋) and Lee Ching-hua (李慶華), are interested in the deputy speakership, reports said.
■ Aid Efforts
Doctors to go to Sri Lanka
A medical group in Taiwan will leave for Sri Lanka today, one of the countries hardest hit by the catastrophic tsunamis on Sunday, to provide medical service. Liu Chi-chun (劉啟群), president of Taiwan Root Medical Peace Corps, said the group will assess the damage and if needed, will arrange more groups to go there. Taiwan Root has been to Sri Lanka three times for medical assistance, and it last returned from the country in late November. This time it will travel to Batticaloa and Pottubil in southern Sri Lanka. The tsunamis has taken a heavy toll on the nation, with a jail in Galle City being flattened by the tidal waves and half of the inmates drowned. Liu said that the group will carry with them related medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, and that medical services will focus on surgical assistance and the prevention of infectious diseases.
■ Travel
Record set at airport
The number of arrivals, departures and transit visits for the year at Chiang Kai-shek (CKS) International Airport reached a record high of 20 million yesterday, according to airport officials. Lee Tung-yang (李東洋), a Taiwanese passenger returning from a business trip, became the 20 millionth passenger for the year and was mobbed by reporters in the arrivals hall. He was awarded free flight tickets worth NT$100,000 (US$3,107.52) and tax-free gifts at an awards presentation ceremony held by the airport authorities, as were the two passengers immediately before and after him. After the inauguration of the airport in 1979, the number of arrivals and departures for the year was only 4.04 million.
■ Crime
Man `slept' with corpse
A man killed his friend two years ago and has been sleeping beside the corpse since then, television channel CTI reported yesterday. The man, identified only as Chiu, killed his friend with an iron bar during a quarrel when they were drinking at Chiu's home, CTI said. Chiu then wrapped the corpse up in a quilt, tied up the bundle with ropes and left it on his bed. "When the body decomposed and gave out a bad smell, Chiu placed camphor balls and sprayed disinfectant in his bedroom to suppress the bad odor," a policeman from Yungkang Police Station in Tainan County told CTI. "Chiu said he kept the body in his house because he believed this was a good way to reduce his bad karma, but we think he has mental problems," the policeman added. Police arrested Chiu after a neighbor saw the corpse on the bed and alerted police.
■ Politics
Soong `to meet US officials'
People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) left for the US late last night after he returned to Taiwan the day before, according to PFP members. The party officials, who declined to be named, said Soong may meet "influent-ial US officials to discuss matters regarding Taiwan-US relations. Soong and his wife Chen Wan-shui (陳萬水) returned to Taiwan early Monday morning to attend the funeral of former first lady Faina Chiang Fang-liang (蔣方良), the Russian wife of late president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). The PFP chairman was formerly the late president's English secretary. According to PFP members, Soong is headed to the US to meet some officials and think-tanks. They refused, however, to elaborate to the press whom Soong is to meet or what they are to talk about.
■ Weather
Snowfall leads to roadblock
Police in Nantou sealed off a major road leading to Hohuan Mountain yesterday evening, with the arrival of a severe cold front that brought snow to the mountain. Police patrolling the area decided to ban all vehicles from entrance because the road became slippery after the snowfall, the Central News Agency reported. Temperat-ures in the mountain area dropped to below freezing at around 5pm yesterday. Cars will be allowed on road again starting from 6am today, but the police said they might have to prolong the road block if the snow continues. At Jade Mountain, Taiwan's highest mountain, the temperature fell below the freezing point yesterday evening. Snow is also expected on the mountain in the coming few days, weather officials 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