■ Politics
Ker touted as candidate
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislative caucus whip Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said party heavyweight Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) has decided to run for the speakership of the Legislative Yuan, the Central News Agency reported last night. The agency quoted Tai as saying that Ker has been working to gain support from DPP comrades for the bid. Following the failure of the DPP to form an alliance with the People First Party for a joint ticket for the speakership, DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), the party's designated candidate, pulled out of the race on Monday. Meanwhile, DPP Legislator Trong Tsai (蔡同榮) has shown an interest in running for the post as well.
■ Education
Classrooms full of hazards
Nearly 350,000 junior-high school and elementary school students attend classes in dangerous classrooms, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Cheng Cheng-lung (程振隆) said yesterday. Cheng said an investigation of the age and maintenance of classrooms at junior-high schools and elementary schools in 25 cities and counties found that a total of 6,322 classrooms in 20 of the areas pose safety hazards but are still in use. He estimated that there are a total of about 8,720 such classrooms in the 25 cities and counties. Based on the figure of an average of 40 students per class, Cheng calculated that about 348,970 students attend classes in a "dangerous" classroom. The study found Taichung County has the largest number of dangerous classrooms, at 917, followed by Tainan County at 862, and Pingtung County at 770.
■ Disaster Aid
Aid tops NT$360 million
World Vision Taiwan said yesterday that it had received NT$363,716,538 in donations for the tsunami disaster relief fund. As relief efforts are continuing, the organization will designate community and social reconstruction projects as the next priority. According to World Vision Taiwan director Hank Du (杜明翰), the group plans to rebuild schools, houses and set up childcare centers in India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
■ Society
No parole for dirty official
The Ministry of Justice yesterday rejected former DPP legislator David Chou's (周伯倫) application for parole. According to the Department of Corrections (矯正司), Chou filed his application last month. The department decided to decline his request, because Chou "needs more rehabilitation." Department Director Huang Cheng-nan (黃徵男) said prison records showed that Chou has broken many rules, including hiding NT$50,000 in cash in his cell and smoking and eating betel-nuts at unauthorized times, since he began his jail term at the Hualien Prison. Chou reported to Hualien Prison on Feb. 17, 2003. He is serving a six-year sentence for his involvement in the Ronghsing Park development scandal.
■ Relief Work
Buddhists head to Sri Lanka
The sixth relief mission from the Buddhist Compassionate Relief Tzu Chi Foundation to Sri Lanka following the Dec. 26 tsunami tragedy has left North America to continue aid efforts there. A total of 40 volunteers from Canada and the US are expected to reach Colombo today, mainly to provide medical care. The volunteers are expected to stay there until Feb. 5. Tzu Chi has been in Hambantota, one of the hardest-hit areas, since Dec. 31. Taiwanese medical volunteers with the group have treated an average of 700 people per day in the city over the past 55 days.
■ Labor
Chemicals get new labels
In an effort to protect the safety of foreign nationals in Taiwan, the Environmen-tal Protection Administra-tion (EPA) has enacted a new regulation requiring that all toxic material containers carry labels in both English and Chinese. EPA officials said the new regulation will require bilingual labels on all containers for toxic chemicals, agents and substances. The EPA began monitoring implementation of the new regulation nationwide yesterday, the officials said. Meanwhile, the EPA has made available on its official Web site (www.epa.gov.tw) the Chinese and English names of 252 kinds of toxic chemicals to help facilitate the toxicity control efforts by the private business and industrial sectors.
■ Society
Writer to receive doctorate
National Taiwan University president Chen Wei-chao (陳維昭) has flown to Paris to confer an honorary doctorate on Kao Xingjian (高行健), winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in literature, an university spokesman said yesterday. Chen headed for Paris in the company of Peng Ching-hsi (彭鏡禧), dean of the College of Literature, the spokesman said. The university announced its decision last November to confer the honorary academic degree on Kao as part of its 76th anniversary celebrations. Kao did not travel to Taipei to receive the honor at the university's Nov. 15 celebration ceremony because of poor health, but he addressed the event via a 10-minute video in which he expressed his gratitude for the recognition of his literary career. The spokesman said Chen will take advantage of his Paris trip to discuss technical details regarding Kao's previous promise to give lectures at the university if his health improves.
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