■ Society
President's son to wed
The Presidential Office confirmed last night that Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) son, will marry in June. His fiancee is Huang Jui-ching (黃睿靚). According to the Presidential Office, the engagement ceremony will take place on June 11 at a hotel in Taichung. The wedding is scheduled for June 18. Chen Chih-chung, 26, is expected to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley with a masters degree. Huang, 26, is a native of Changhua County and graduated with a degree in music from the Taipei National University of Art last year.
■ Education
UK to hike student visa fee
The British government said yesterday it planned to more than double the cost of visas for foreign students. The Foreign Office said the fee for students from outside the EU would rise from £36 (US$69) to £85. Officials said the hike, which will not be approved until after the May 5 national election, was necessary to cover the cost of processing student visa applications, which have increased by 30 percent in the last two years. However, universities have complained that the increase will deter overseas students from choosing UK schools.
■ Travel
Yu to attend US graduation
Presidential Office official last night confirmed that Presidential Office Secretary-General Yu Shyi-kun is planning a trip to the US next month to attend his son's graduation. Yu Bing-tao (游秉陶), the secretary-general's eldest son who is currently pursuing a master's degree in international relations at Columbia University, is set to complete his degree this summer. The young Yu left for New York last May after obtaining his bachelor's degree in horticulture and political science from National Taiwan University. The date of the US trip is tentatively set for mid-May, said the official. When asked whether the secretary-general will take the opportunity to meet with local Taiwanese expatriates, the official said the trip is merely a private visit to attend the graduation ceremony. Asked whether Yu will make a detour during his stay in the US to Washington DC and meet with US government officials, the official declined to comment.
■ Criem
Soothsayer suffers ill fortune
A fortune teller fell victim to telephone fraud after he transmitted NT$2.8 million (US$90,000) to a stranger's bank account, a radio station reported yesterday. The 65-year-old man, identified as Liu, received a phone call from a stranger who said that a rich man had died in China and left NT$12 million to Liu, the report said. "Liu was puzzled because he didn't know anyone in China, but thought maybe the money was the result of the merit he had done through fortune telling." Liu was told he had to send money to a bank account to cover taxes before he could get the fortune. Liu's family warned him that it was probably a scam. But Liu took out bank loans and sent NT$2.8 million, in seven installments, to the caller's bank account, the report said. After realizing he had been duped, Liu contacted the police. The bank account was traced to a Taiwanese woman who claimed that she had lent the account to her brother-in-law in China, who might have committed the fraud.
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