■ White terror
Victims remembered
Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) attended a church service in Kaohsiung yesterday for victims of improper verdicts handed down between 1949 and 1987 when the nation was ruled by martial law. Speaking at the service, the premier extended his sympathy for victims of improper verdicts and their families, and urged them to rise beyond their personal suffering and look forward to harmony between different ethnic groups. The church service, which brought together hundreds of attendants, was the latest of a series of activities organized by the Compensation Foundation for Improper Verdicts to heal the rift caused by the rule of martial law. The private foundation was set up with funds donated by the government to compensate victims of improper verdicts. Since its formation in 1999, the foundation has received 7,378 applications for compensation, 83 percent of which have been approved.
■ Foreign affairs
Youngsters in US `doorknock'
Thirty Taiwanese young people participating in a series of training courses organized by the Formosa Foundation will begin visiting US congressmen next week, foundation officials said yesterday. Over the last week, the group, 10 of which are university students and the remaining 20 of whom live in the US, have taken courses on communication techniques, crisis management, the Asia-Pacific situation, Taiwanese history and culture and US-Taiwan relations, in preparation for their roles as "goodwill ambassadors." Starting next week, they will visit US congressmen, government officials in charge of foreign policy and experts from various think tanks. The participants in two previous training courses have visited more than 200 senators and members of the US House of Representatives to exchange opinions with them and present issues of concern to Taiwanese-Americans.
■ Defense
Radar to improve capability
An early warning surveillance radar system to be sold to Taiwan by the United States will significantly boost the country's defense capability , the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday. In a statement issued a day after the US Defense Department announced in Washington that it had awarded defense contractor Raytheon Co a US$752 million contract to build the radar system for Taiwan, the ministry said Taiwan's ability to defend itself against missiles is insufficient. Although Taiwan has already acquired the US-made Patriot Advanced Capability-II anti-missile system and is anticipating purchasing the more advanced PAC-III system, their effectiveness is limited without the early warning radar system.
■ Health
New checks in place
In an effort to protect the public from electromagnetic hazards, the Bureau of Standards, Meteorology and Inspection (BSMI) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs will perform stricter checks on information products from July 1. Besides the existing security checks, products will have to pass an additional electronic security check before entering the market, BSMI officials said yesterday. The upgraded security checks are being adopted in accordance with international security standards, while each item that passes the checks will be clearly labeled so that consumers can identify them, the BSMI said. Detailed information on the labeling can be obtained by calling 0800-231-623.
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