■ Society
Ni Min-jan laid to rest
The nation's entertainment elite fought back tears yesterday during a memorial service celebrating the career of veteran comedian Ni Min-jan (倪敏然) who committed suicide two weeks ago. Ni, 58, hanged himself from a tree near Toucheng in Ilan County. Police found his body four days later. Doctors said he had been suffering from depression. Since his death, cable news stations have provided saturation coverage of the death and the reactions of friends and family. At the memorial service, actors and actresses wearing black and white mourning clothes hailed Ni as the godfather of the nation's variety show, and for the contributions he made over a career spanning more than 30 years. The eulogy was delivered by Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), whom Ni used to impersonate.
■ Society
First lady flies to US
First lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) last night departed for the US to attend her son's commencement at the University of California Berkeley. President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), has finished his master's program in law at Berkeley and the ceremony will take place tomorrow. After attending the ceremony, Wu will return to Taiwan with Chen Chih-chung to prepare for his marriage in Taipei on June 18. Meanwhile, Presidential Office Secretary-General Yu Shyi-kun on Sunday departs for the US to attend the graduation of his older son, who finished his master's degree at Columbia University. Yu will give a speech while in New York before flying to Washington for a three-day stay.
■ Charity
Chen auctions tuna for kids
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) auctioned off three top-quality bluefin tuna at the opening of an annual culture and tourism festival in Pingtung County yesterday to help raise NT$18.8 million (US$600,000) for a children's charity drive. Chen said he traveled from Taipei to auction off the tuna because of his concern for the well-being of disadvantaged children. Chen said he was serving as a spokesman for the "Dear Kids Welfare Account," opened by the Ministry of the Interior on Women's and Children's Day on April 4 to help impoverished children. Chen expressed gratitude to the three philanthropists who bought the tuna. One of the buyers was anonymous and the other two were business executives. The ministry hopes to raise at least NT$200 million by the end of the year.
■ Politics
Lien pushes trade `deal'
The government should respond quickly to China's offer to import 12 categories of Taiwanese farm produce duty free and not politicize or complicate the issue so that farmers can reap the benefits, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) said yesterday. Lien said the revenue from agricultural exports to China would increase by NT$10 billion (US$318 million) per year because of the preferential treatment. He said the Taiwan Provincial Farmers' Association should do its best to set up quarantine procedures and distribution mechanisms in conjunction with appropriate government authorities. The government should carry out tasks that are beneficial to the people, while the private sector should also join the effort to promote the initiative, he said. Along with greater market access, Beijing also offered two giant pandas and promised to help Taiwan join the World Health Organization during Lien's visit to China between April 26 and May 3.
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